The  Eeliaion 
of  the  Char 


BX  5131    .G7  1917 

Gore,  Charles,  1853-1932. 

The  religion  of  the  church 


1 

Digitized  by 

the  Internet  Archive 

in  2015 

https://archive.org/details/religionofchurchOOgore 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE 
CHURCH 


Sj)  Bishop  Core 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  CHURCH 

As  Presented  in  the  Church  of  England.  A  Manual 
of  Membership.    Paper,  50  cts.    Cloth.  75  ct». 

ORDERS  AND  UNITY 
Price  75  cts. 

THE  NEW  THEOLOGY  AND 
THE  OLD  RELIGION 
Price  75  cts. 

THE  BASIS  OF  ANGLICAN  FELLOWSHIP 
An  Open  Letter  to  the  Clergy  of  the  Diocese  of 
Oxford.    Paper,  20  cts. 


Published  by 
The  Young  Churchman  Co. 
Milwaukee,  Wis. 


THE  RELIGION  OF 

THE  CHURCH^^^^^^^ 

(    JAN  10  1911 

AS  PRESENTED  IN  THE  CHURC^H^, 

OF  ENGLAND  ^^£{flGiCAL 

A  MANUAL  OF  MEMBERSHIP 


By  CHARLES  GORE,  D.D. 

Bishop  of  Oxford 


AMERICAN  EDITION 
By  arrangement  with  the  English  publishers 


MILWAUKEE: 
THE  YOUNG  CHURCHMAN  CO. 

1917 


COPTBIGHT  BY 

THE  YOUNG  CHURCHMAN  CO. 
1917 


PREFACE 


THIS  little  book  is  intended  as  a  summary 
statement  of  the  religion  of  the  catholic 
church.  It  is  intended  to  meet  a  need,  which  is 
just  now  clamorous — the  provision  of  a  manual 
of  instruction  for  the  members  of  the  Church  of 
England.  It  has  been  rapidly  written,  and,  from 
the  nature  of  the  case,  can  supply  little  in  the  way 
of  proofs  or  justifications  of  its  statements.  But 
I  can  truthfully  plead  that  there  is  nothing  here 
written  down  that  has  not  behind  it  the  medita- 
tion and  study  of  a  lifetime ;  and  in  other  books  I 
have  sought  to  supply  the  grounds,  or  a  great 
part  of  the  grounds,  on  which  the  statements  of 
this  book  repose.  I  hope  my  critics  will  remem- 
ber this. 

My  little  book  has  had  the  advantage  of  the 
very  careful  criticisms  and  suggestions  of  Father 
Paul  Bull,  C.R.  I  have  not  seen  my  way  to  accept 
all  his  suggestions,  and  he  has  no  responsibility 
for  what  appears  in  the  book.  But  the  help  he 
has  given  me  has  been  invaluable.    I  owe  to  the 


iv  Preface 

Rev.  Wilfrid  Cooper,  my  chaplain,  the  short  index 
to  the  topics  treated  in  the  book. 

C.  OXON: 

Michaelmas,  1916. 


NOTE 

I  have  been  several  times  asked  why  I  do  not  print  such 
words  as  Church,  Sacrament,  Precious  Blood,  etc.,  with  a 
capital.  There  are,  1  suppose,  two  principles  on  which 
capitals  may  be  used.  One  principle,  which  seems  to  be 
dominant,  is  to  use  them,  even  in  the  case  of  adjectives,  to 
express  sacredness  or  dignity  or  importance.  The  other 
principle,  the  principle  of  the  English  Bible,  is  to  use  them 
only  for  proper  names.  I  greatly  prefer  this  principle,  and 
seek  to  adhere  to  it,  save  that  I  have  not  dared  (except  in 
quotations  from  the  Bible)  to  print  the  personal  pronouns 
referring  to  God  without  the  capitals.  Otherwise,  I  desire 
to  adhere  to  the  principle  of  the  English  Bible.  I  suppose 
"Church  of  England,"  "Church  of  Rome,"  "the  Pope,"  "the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury"  to  be  proper  names  requiring 
capitals.  Otherwise,  I  print  church,  bishop,  etc.,  without 
a  capital.  It  does  not  seem  to  me  to  matter  much.  But 
one  likes  to  have  some  principle  to  adhere  to,  and  I  think 
the  best  principle  is,  as  far  as  possible,  to  reserve  capitals 
for  proper  names. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

Membership  in  the  Church   .  1 

CHAPTER  II 
The  Catholic  Faith.    Preliminaries    ....  8 

CHAPTER  III 
The  Doctrine  of  God  and  His  Creatures    ...  15 

CHAPTER  IV 
The  Church  and  the  Sacraments  36 

CHAPTER  V 
The  Last  Things  and  the  Communion  of  Saints  67 

CHAPTER  VI 
Christian  Morality  92 

CHAPTER  VII 
Prayer  117 

CHAPTER  VIII 
The  Bible — its  truth,  its  inspiration,  and  its  use  .  129 

CHAPTER  IX 
The  Church  of  England  in  the  Larger  World   .    .  151 
Index  177 


THE  RELIGION  OF 
THE  CHURCH 


CHAPTER  I 


Membership  in  the  Church 


HRISTIANITY  is  a  certain  kind  of  personal 


\m/  belief  and  a  certain  kind  of  personal  life;  but 
it  is  not  a  merely  individual  religion,  "a  private 
matter  between  a  man's  soul  and  God."  It  is 
membership,  with  all  the  responsibility  of  mem- 
bership, in  a  society  or  brotherhood  which  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord  founded  to  bind  together  in  one 
men  of  all  classes  and  races  and  kinds.  This 
society  is  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,  and  the 
Church  of  England  is  a  part  of  the  catholic 
church. 

Read  the  Gospels,  and  you  will  read  of  Jesus 
Christ  founding  His  church  and  giving  to  it  and 
to  its  officers  authority  over  all  its  members, 
authority  to  "bind"  and  "loose"  ' — that  is,  to  pro- 
hibit this  and  to  allow  that — with  a  divine  sanc- 


'  S.  Matt.  xvi.  19 ;  xviii.  18. 


2 


The  Religion  of  ihe  Church 


tion ;  and  authority  to  "remit"  and  "retain"  sins ' 
with  divine  ratification — that  is,  to  admit  men  into 
its  fellowship  or  to  exclude  them  if  they  are  un- 
worthy, and  to  readmit  them  when  they  show 
themselves  penitent.  Years  before  our  present 
Gospels  were  written  down,  the  Christian  church 
was  acting  on  this  commission.  Read  the  First 
Epistle  of  S.  Paul  to  the  Corinthians  and  you 
will  find  a  vivid  account  of  one  of  the  first  Chris- 
tian churches.  There  is  plenty  of  sin  and  wilful- 
ness to  be  found  there,  but  there  is  no  mistaking 
the  intense  sense  of  membership.  They  had  been 
brought  at  their  baptism  by  the  one  Spirit  into 
the  one  body,  and  they  celebrated  together  the 
Holy  Communion,  the  sacrament  of  continual 
membership.  The  authority  of  the  whole  body 
and  of  the  apostle  is  asserted  and  acknowledged 
over  every  member.  Any  plainly  unworthy  mem- 
ber is  to  be  judged  and  excluded  from  their 
company  "in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus,"  and 
one  so  excluded,  when  he  is  penitent,  can  be 
received  back  into  communion  or  forgiven  "in  the 
person  of  Christ."  ^  Every  member  is  expected 
to  take  a  part  and  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the 
church,  its  discipline,  and  its  worship.  For  a 
"member"  means  a  limb,  and  every  limb  of  the 

'  S.  John  XX.  23. 

'  See  for  the  whole  of  this  paragraph  1  Cor.  xii. ;  1  Cor.  x. 
15-22;  1  Cor.  v.;  2  Cor.  ii.  5-11,  etc. 


Membership  in  the  Church 


3 


body  has  to  do  part  of  the  work  of  the  body. 
And  as  they  had  learned  from  Christ  the  infinite 
worth  of  every  human  soul,  so  in  their  fellow- 
ship they  recognized  that  the  need  of  each  is  the 
care  of  all,  and  that  "if  one  member  suffer,  all  the 
members  suffer  with  it."  The  great  salvation  in 
which  they  all  rejoiced  was  a  gift  of  God  for  all 
which  bound  them  into  brotherhood :  and  they 
acted  on  the  principle  of  all  true  brotherhood — 
"from  each  according  to  his  capacity:  to  each 
according  to  his  need."  Many  things  promoted 
the  growth  of  the  church  in  early  days — the  stead- 
fast faith  of  Christians,  the  high  moral  level  of 
their  lives,  the  courage  and  joy  with  which  they 
faced  trouble  or  death ;  but,  perhaps  more  than 
all  else,  it  was  the  intense  sense  of  membership, 
the  spirit  of  mutual  love,  which  drew  men  to 
them.  And  every  local  church  in  every  age  has 
been  either  an  effective  or  an  ineffective  part  of 
the  body  of  Christ,  just  in  proportion  as  the  sense 
of  membership  and  the  responsibility  of  member- 
ship has  been  strong  or  weak. 

When  you  come  down  the  history  of  the  church 
to  the  Church  of  England,  as  it  was  re-ordered  at 
the  Reformation,  and  read  its  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  you  will  see  that  it  meant  to  maintain  at 
a  very  high  level  the  responsibility  of  member- 
ship. Those  who  are  to  be  baptized  are  to  recog- 
nize publicly  before  the  congregation  assembled 


4 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


their  responsibility  for  renouncing  what  Christ 
forbids,  for  believing  the  common  faith  of  the 
church,  and  for  obeying  the  laws  of  discipleship. 
They  are  embarking,  and  that  publicly,  on  a  great 
adventure,  and  they  must  know  what  they  are 
doing.  If  infants  are  to  be  baptized,  then  spon- 
sors must  be  provided  as  sureties,  to  guarantee 
that  the  infants,  as  they  grow  to  years  of  dis- 
cretion, shall  know  the  meaning  of  their  religion. 
And  they  are  to  renew  the  vows  of  baptism 
through  their  own  lips  before  they  can  be  con- 
firmed, by  the  laying-on  of  the  bishop's  hand,  and 
so  enter  upon  full  membership  in  the  strength 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  Lord's  Supper  or  Holy 
Communion  is  the  sacrament  in  which  their  mem- 
bership is  to  be  constantly  renewed  and  reinvig- 
orated,  and  it  is  to  be  guarded  by  the  officers  of 
the  church  from  unworthy  partaking.  Those 
whose  lives  cause  public  scandal  are  to  be  warned 
or,  if  need  be,  excommunicated,  or  put  out  of 
fellowship,  till  they  have  shown  themselves  of  a 
better  mind,  and  "been  openly  reconciled  by  pen- 
ance," and  so  can  be  readmitted  to  fellowship. 
And  private  confession  and  absolution  is  provided 
for  those  whose  conscience  is  troubled  by  secret 
sins.  And  the  needs  of  the  poor  and  sick  are  to 
be  relieved  by  the  alms  of  the  whole  community. 
And  the  law  of  indissoluble  marriage  is  to  set  its 
consecration  upon  the  home.    And  the  sick  and 


Membership  in  the  Church 


5 


dying  are  to  be  dealt  with  as  responsible  members 
who  must  be  brought  to  a  right  faith  and  peni- 
tence, and  make  their  peace  with  God  and  man, 
that,  if  they  die,  the  words  of  confident  hope, 
such  as  belong  rightly  to  the  holy  fellowship  of 
the  church,  may  be  spoken  over  their  graves. 

All  this  is  natural  and  right.  Every  union  or 
society  which  exists  for  any  worthy  object  must 
maintain  a  high  sense  of  the  responsibility  of 
membership;  and  all  its  members  must  recognize 
that,  if  they  fail  to  keep  its  obligatory  rules,  they 
must  fall  out  of  membership  and  lose  its  advan- 
tages. A  nominal  membership  is  the  curse  of  any 
union.  What  trade  union  could  last  if  a  large 
percentage  of  its  members  never  obeyed  its  rules 
or  fulfilled  their  obligations? 

But  if  this  is  true,  then  indeed  we  know  wherein 
lies  the  present  weakness  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. It  has  cheapened  membership  till  it  has 
come  to  mean  almost  nothing.  Of  our  soldiers 
we  are  told  seventy  per  cent,  recognize  them- 
selves as  members  of  the  Church  of  England, 
but  it  is  only  a  small  number  whose  membership 
has  meant  much  in  their  lives.  The  sacrament 
of  continual  fellowship  has  been  ignored.  They 
have  taken  no  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  church. 
They  have  never  been  led  to  think  of  the  man- 
agement of  the  church  as  if  it  was  their  business. 
They  have  not  felt  it  as  a  fellowship.   It  has  not 


6  The  Religion  of  ihe  Church 


led  them  to  expect  that  if  they  were  wronged  or 
unjustly  treated,  it  would  be  the  duty  and  privi- 
lege of  the  church  to  see  them  righted.  They 
have  the  vaguest  idea  of  the  church's  faith,  and 
a  very  weak  sense  of  either  the  joy  or  the  responsi- 
bility of  common  worship.  They  have  no  idea 
that  they  wrong  the  church  by  evil  living,  or  that 
the  church  has  anything  to  do  with  the  matter. 
For  old  associations'  sake  they  like  to  be  married 
in  church,  and  to  bring  their  children  to  be  chris- 
tened, and  to  send  their  children  to  the  Sunday 
school,  and  they  wish  to  be  buried  with  the 
church's  service.  But  for  the  rest,  membership 
in  the  church  means  almost  nothing.  Now  I  have 
no  doubt  at  all  that  the  reform  which  is  the  most 
fundamental  and  necessary,  if  there  is  to  be  any 
effectual  revival  of  religion  in  our  old  Church  of 
England,  is  to  recover  the  feeling  of  the  obliga- 
tions of  membership.  What  we  want  first  of  all 
is  not  more  Christians  but  better  Christians,  not 
more  Churchmen  but  better  Churchmen.  Every 
one  must  understand  that  he  or  she  cannot  be- 
come or  remain  a  member  of  the  church  without 
fulfilling  the  elementary  responsibilities  of  mem- 
bership. All  Christians  are  called  "kings  and 
priests"  in  the  New  Testament,  and  they  should 
exercise  their  kingship  and  priesthood  by  active 
participation  in  the  affairs  and  worship  of  the 
church.    Both  their  duties  and  their  rights  need 


Membership  in  the  Church 


7 


to  be  much  more  fully  recognized.  A  vast  change 
is  needed  in  this  direction.  But  the  first  step  is 
to  revive  the  sense  of  membership;  and  because 
I  believe  this  to  be  the  most  fundamental  and 
necessary  of  all  reforms,  I  have  called  this  book, 
which  attempts  to  explain  the  religion  of  the 
church  according  to  the  use  and  practice  of  the 
Church  of  England,  a  "manual  of  membership." 

The  church  has  lately  had  it  brought  home  to 
it  how  small  a  proportion  of  "the  workers"  are 
practising  Churchmen.  At  the  same  time  the 
ideas  and  aspirations  of  brotherhood — that  is,  the 
spirit  of  mutual  membership — are  stirring  the 
world  of  labour  to  its  depths.  There  is,  I  am 
persuaded,  only  one  way  in  which  the  church 
can  commend  its  message  to  labour.  It  is  not  by 
lowering  its  doctrine  or  cheapening  its  claim.  It 
is  by  making  the  spirit  of  brotherhood,  the  spirit 
of  mutual  membership,  once  again  real  and  effec- 
tive in  the  church,  which  indeed  was  founded  to 
carry  into  every  corner  of  the  earth  the  witness 
of  Christ  to  the  worth  and  dignity  of  every  human 
being  for  whom  Christ  died. 


CHAPTER  II 


The  Catholic  Faith 

THREE  preliminaries  must  first  be  considered. 
1.  The  religion  of  the  church  is  based  upon 
a  word  (or  revelation)  of  God. — The  people  of 
Israel  was  called  by  God  among  ancient  peoples 
to  be  His  people  and  to  reveal  His  "name"  and 
purpose  among  men.  In  the  words  of  a  great 
Christian  father  the  Jews  were,  through  their 
prophets,  "the  sacred  school  of  the  knowledge  of 
God  and  of  the  spiritual  life  for  all  mankind." 
The  Jews  were  thus  the  ancient  and  preparatory 
church  of  God.  The  church  of  Jesus  Christ  took 
its  origin  out  of  this  ancient  church,  but  it  is 
catholic  or  universal,  a  super-national  fellowship, 
based  upon  the  fuller  revelation  of  God  which  is 
given  us  in  Jesus  Christ.  But  the  Jewish  church 
and  the  church  of  Christ  are  really  one  church, 
and  are  alike  based  on  the  word  of  God — that  is, 
on  God's  revelation  of  Himself  given  first  through 
His  prophets  and  then  finally  through  His  Son : 
and  to  become,  or  remain  rightly,  a  member  of 
the  church  each  one  must  accept  the  message  of 


The  Catholic  Faith 


9 


the  church — its  fundamental  faith — as  being  truly 
"the  word  of  God."  There  are  solemn  words  of 
our  Lord  which  sound  strangely  in  our  ears:  "I 
thank  thee,  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth, 
that  thou  didst  hide  these  things  (that  is,  His 
message)  from  the  wise  and  understanding,  and 
didst  reveal  them  unto  babes:  yea,  Father,  for 
so  it  was  well-pleasing  in  thy  sight.  All  things 
have  been  delivered  unto  me  of  my  Father:  and 
no  one  knoweth  the  Son  save  the  Father,  neither 
doth  any  know  the  Father  save  the  Son  and  he 
to  whomsoever  the  Son  willeth  to  reveal  him."  ' 
In  this  wonderful  saying  our  Lord  asserts  His 
own  community  of  nature  with  God  His  Father, 
and  His  unique  claim  to  reveal  God  to  men ;  and 
He  expresses  a  positive  joy  in  the  fact  that  while 
the  learned  refuse  His  message  the  simple  accept 
it.  He  sees  in  this  the  fulfilment  of  a  divine 
purpose,  and  S.  Paul  after  Him,  in  different 
words,  does  the  same  thing.  A  little  thought  will 
enable  us  to  understand  our  Lord's  joy  in  what 
would  at  first  sight  seem  to  us  to  have  been  a 
grave  disaster.  It  is  that  only  so  could  a  really 
broad  and  enduring  church  be  founded  or  propa- 
gated. The  learned,  the  intellectuals,  of  every 
age,  instinctively  claim  the  prerogative  of  their 
learning.  They  are,  in  this  respect,  like  rich  men 
who  also  instinctively  expect  a  prerogative  posi- 
»  S.  Matt.  xi.  25-27;  S.  Luke  x.  21,  22;  1  Cor.  i.  18-31. 


1 0  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


tion  because  they  are  rich ;  whom,  therefore,  our 
Lord  similarly  treated  as  being  under  a  special 
disadvantage  in  their  approach  to  His  kingdom. 
What  is  the  claim  made  commonly  by  a  learned 
class?  It  is  that  they  will  only  accept  as  true 
what  commends  itself  to  them  as  the  conclusion 
of  their  own  reasonings.  But  the  intellectual 
methods  and  principles  of  learned  men  are  not 
commonly  intelligible  to  the  mass  of  ordinary 
men,  and  also  vary  considerably,  even  profoundly, 
from  age  to  age  and  nation  to  nation.  Thus  a 
religion  which  in  any  age  should  approve  itself 
to  the  learned  class  as  the  conclusion  of  its  own 
reasoning  would  be  a  narrow  religion,  unaccept- 
able to  the  mass  of  men  and  still  more  unaccept- 
able to  men  of  another  nation  or  another  civil- 
ization. If  there  is  to  be  a  catholic  church,  a 
religion  for  the  common  man,  all  the  world  over 
and  in  every  generation,  it  must  be  based  not  on 
human  reasoning  but  on  divine  revelation,  on 
God's  disclosure  of  Himself,  and  must  be  received 
by  men  in  simple  faith  as  God's  own  word.  Our 
religion  is  not  to  be  an  evolution  from  within,  but 
a  bestowal  from  above ;  not  a  conclusion  of  logic, 
but  a  gift  of  God ;  to  be  welcomed  on  authority 
and  then  verified  in  experience — our  own  experi- 
ence fortified  and  supported  by  the  experience 
of  the  whole  church.  That  is  what  the  Bible 
says,  and  truly,  both  Old  Testament  and  New: 


The  Catholic  Faith 


n 


"Canst  thou  by  searching  find  out  God?  Canst 
thou  find  out  the  Almighty  unto  perfection?  It 
is  high  as  heaven;  what  canst  thou  do?  Deeper 
than  the  grave;  what  canst  thou  know?"  "In  the 
wisdom  of  God  the  world  through  its  wisdom 
knew  not  God."  "Hath  not  God  made  foolish 
the  wisdom  of  the  world  ?"  '  That  is  the  claim  of 
the  Christian  faith.  A  brilliant  scientist,  like 
Louis  Pasteur,  may  be  a  devout  Christian,  but 
that  is  because,  like  Pasteur,  he  has  been  content 
in  the  first  instance  to  receive  his  faith,  like  the 
most  ignorant  person,  as  the  word  of  God  from 
the  church  which  is  commissioned  to  bear  it. 

2.  The  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  expound  this 
word  of  God. — To  receive  the  message  of  Christ 
from  His  church  in  simple  docility  a  man  must  be 
convinced  that  Jesus  Christ  really  is  the  Son  of 
God,  and  has  really  sent  His  church  into  the 
world.  In  one  who  comes  from  outside  this  con- 
viction will  be  brought  about  in  one  case  mostly 
by  intellectual,  in  another  case  mostly  by  moral 
considerations,  in  another  case  by  personal  influ- 
ence. To  produce  this  preliminary  intellectual 
conviction  is  the  work  of  what  is  called  "apolo- 
getics"— that  is,  the  reasoned  expression  of  the 
grounds  of  Christian  belief.  In  this  book  I  am 
not  concerned  with  that.  I  assume  in  my  readers 
that  they  are  so  far  convinced,  or  willing  to  be 
=  Job  xi.  7,  8;  1  Cor.  i.  20,  21. 


1 2  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


convinced,  about  Christ  either  by  tradition  from 
their  fathers,  or  by  intellectual  reasonings,  or  by 
their  moral  needs,  as  to  be  ready  to  listen  with 
docile  hearts  to  the  message  of  "grace  and  truth 
which  came  by  Jesus  Christ."  My  duty  is  to 
make  it  plain  that  the  message  claims  to  be 
based,  not  on  human  reason,  but  on  a  divine 
revelation  given  us  finally  in  Jesus  Christ ;  and 
my  business  is  to  explain  the  points  and  articles 
of  this  message,  as  the  church,  which  is  Christ's 
commissioned  agent,  delivered  it  from  the  first. 
Personal  faith  is  a  gift — a  priceless  gift — wrought 
in  the  heart  by  the  Spirit  of  God :  "No  man  can 
say,  Jesus  is  Lord,  but  in  the  Holy  Spirit."  But 
an  important  part  of  the  preparation  of  our  hearts 
for  this  gift  is  to  be  ready  to  listen  attentively 
and  patiently  to  what  the  message  is.  To  reject 
it  or  despise  it  without  having  really  been  at 
pains  to  understand  what  it  is,  after  all  that  the 
message  of  the  Gospel  has  done  for  the  world,  is  a 
sort  of  insolence. 

3.  The  word  of  God  must  be  looked  for  in  the 
first  instance  from  the  church.^ — The  church  was 
at  work  perhaps  some  twenty  years  before  any 
of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament,  as  we  now 
have  them,  were  written,  and  some  seventy  years 
before  they  were  all  written.  It  will  not  surprise 
us,  therefore,  to  find  out  that  no  one  of  the  books 
of  the  New  Testament  was  written  to  give  to  any 


The  Catholic  Faith 


13 


one  his  first  instruction  in  the  Christian  religion. 
"That  thou  mayest  know  the  certainty  of  those 
things  in  which  thou  wast  instructed"  is  the  object 
with  which  S.  Luke  wrote  his  Gospel.  And  when 
S.  Paul  writes  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians 
about  the  resurrection  or  the  eucharist  it  is  to 
remind  them  of  "the  gospel  which  I  preached 
unto  you,  which  also  ye  received."  "For  I  deliv- 
ered unto  you  first  of  all  that  which  also  I  re- 
ceived." That  is  the  tone  of  the  whole  New 
Testament.  It  assumes  and  takes  for  granted  the 
rudimentary  instruction  which  had  been  already 
given  to  the  converts  to  the  church.  Speaking 
generally,  we  may  say  that  all  that  is  contained 
in  our  catechism  is,  in  the  New  Testament,  taken 
for  granted  as  already  familiar  ground  among  the 
Christians.  And  the  different  books  of  the  New 
Testament  were  written  as  occasion  arose  by  the 
apostles  or  their  companions  to  record  the  tradi- 
tion in  its  best  form,  or  to  reinforce  and  explain 
and  defend  the  fundamental  faith.  It  is  thus  the 
function  of  "the  church  to  teach  and  of  the  Bible 
to  prove"  and  confirm  the  faith.  And  so  com- 
plete are  the  books  of  Scripture  taken  together, 
and  so  full  the  inspiration  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
under  which  they  were  believed  to  have  been 
written,  that  it  became  the  accepted  principle  of 
the  catholic  church  from  the  first,  as  it  still  is  of 
the  Church  of  England,  that  nothing  could  be 


14 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


part  of  the  necessary  faith  but  what  can  be 
verified  and  proved  in  Scripture.  "Do  not  believe 
what  I  say  simply,"  says  a  great  teacher  of  the 
early  church  to  his  scholars  preparing  for  bap- 
tism, "unless  you  receive  the  proof  of  what  I  tell 
you  from  the  Holy  Scriptures." ' 

With  these  preliminaries  I  propose  to  give  a 
summary  of  the  faith  of  the  church,  which  is  also 
the  faith  of  the  New  Testament  Scriptures. 

'  S.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  Catechetical  Lectures,  iv.  17. 


CHAPTER  III 


The  Doctrine  of  Cod  and  of  His  Creatures 

THE  centre  and  root  of  the  catholic  faith  is  the 
revelation  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God — the 
doctrine  that  the  one  power  which  made  and  pre- 
serves and  guides  the  whole  universe  is  the 
almighty  will  of  a  perfectly  good  God,  who  creates 
and  knows  and  loves  not  only  all  but  each. 

THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD 

Welcome  as  it  is  to  the  hearts  of  men,  this  is 
perhaps  the  hardest  of  all  Christian  doctrines  to 
the  speculative  intellect.  It  is  so  hard  to  recon- 
cile with  the  facts  of  suffering  and  injustice  and 
cruelty,  and  with  the  seeming  moral  indifference 
of  nature.  The  intellect  of  man  would  never  have 
attained  securely  to  this  position  by  mere  inquiry 
and  investigation.  It  rests  on  God's  own  revela- 
tion of  Himself — a  revelation  given  specially 
through  a  long  succession  of  Jewish  prophets 
who  were  inspired  to  proclaim  as  the  word  of 


16 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


God  the  goodness  of  the  Almighty/  and  it  re- 
ceived its  final  expression  through  the  lips  of 
one  who  was  more  than  a  prophet,  who  was  the 
Son  of  God — who  therefore  not  only  proclaimed 
the  truth,  and  claimed  the  right  to  declare  it  with 
infallible  certitude,  but  also,  as  incarnate  in  our 
manhood,  disclosed  to  us  the  real  character  and 
mind  of  God  in  the  intelligible  terms  of  a  human 
life. 

Our  Lord  was  always  bringing  home  to  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  men  the  truth  of  God's 
fatherhood.  His  universal  and  individual  love. 
Consider  the  following  characteristic  sayings : 
"It  is  not  the  will  of  your  Father  which  is  in 
heaven  that  one  of  these  little  ones  should  perish." 
"Not  a  sparrow  shall  fall  on  the  ground  without 
your  Father  :  fear  ye  not,  therefore,  ye  are  of  more 
value  than  many  sparrows."  "Your  Father 
knoweth  what  things  ye  have  need  of  before  ye 
ask  him."  "Your  heavenly  Father  knoweth  that 
ye  have  need  of  all  these  things."  And  He 
claims  to  speak  with  infallible  assurance — "No 
one  knoweth  the  Father  save  the  Son,  and  he  to 
whomsoever  the  Son  willeth  to  reveal  Him" — 
and  not  only  to  reveal  in  words,  but  in  His  own 
person  to  express  God.    "He  that  hath  seen  me 

'  The  word  "Almighty"  or  "omnipotent"  means  properly 
not  so  much  "able  to  do  all  things"  as  "powerful  in  and 
over  all  things" — the  all-ruler. 


The  Doctrine  of  Cod  and  His  Creatures 


17 


hath  seen  the  Father."  Such  sayings  abound  in 
the  Gospels,  and  are  the  centre  of  our  Lord's 
teaching.  They  are  best  summarized  in  the  great 
sentence  of  S.  John,  "God  is  love." 

It  is  an  amazing  paradox.  And  there  is  no 
question  that  what  made  it  believable  was  that 
it  was  revealed  in  full  view  of  all  the  experience 
which  makes  it  seem  so  paradoxical.  The  Old 
Testament  revelation  of  the  one  good  God  was 
given  in  a  blood-stained  world  that  was  being 
trampled  by  the  feet  of  fierce  conquering  armies 
— Assyrians  and  Egyptians,  Babylonians  and 
Persians,  who  neither  showed  nor  expected  any 
mercy.  It  was  given  to  a  weak  and  enslaved 
people — the  Israelites  in  captivity — who  knew  all 
that  bitter  experience  can  teach.  And  when  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  expressed  and  deepened  and 
expanded  the  doctrine,  it  was  as  "the  man  of  sor- 
rows and  acquainted  with  grief,"  who  in  His  own 
person  endured  everything  that  has  ever  been  an 
argument  against  the  divine  love,  everything  that 
in  slow  and  embittering  experience  has  ever 
soured  the  hearts  of  men  and  turned  philanthro- 
pists into  cynics.  He  held  and  proclaimed  the 
mighty  truth  even  from  the  cross  of  failure  and 
shame,  on  which  He  asked  the  great  question, 
"My  God,  my  God,  why  didst  thou  forsake  me?" 
And  His  resurrection  the  third  day  from  the  dead 
was  God's  vindication  of  Him;  the  central  evi- 


18 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


dence  in  one  significant  act  that  the  power  of  God, 
the  one  power  which  made  and  rules  the  world, 
is  through  all  seeming  weakness  and  failure  on 
the  side  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 

These,  then,  are  the  attributes  of  God  which  it 
is  always  most  important  to  have  in  mind. 

1.  Omnipotence — which  means  that  the  one 
all-creating  and  all-pervading  power,  which  is 
both  in  the  whole  universe  and  over  it,  inexhaust- 
ible and  eternal,  is  the  sovereign  will  of  God,  who 
can  do  all  things  which  are  in  accordance  with 
His  own  nature  and  purpose.  He  has  willed  to 
create  free  beings,  and  therefore  tolerates  all  the 
confusion  which  their  rebellion  has  introduced 
into  the  world,  but  He  is  yet  in  His  supreme  wis- 
dom guilding  all  things  to  a  conclusion,  an  "end 
of  the  world,"  in  which  He  will  vindicate  Himself 
in  His  whole  creation.  Thus  from  the  truth  of 
God's  almightiness  follows  the  confident  expec- 
tation of  the  Day  of  the  Lord,  of  which  we  hear 
so  much  in  the  Bible,  when  God  at  last  is  to  come 
into  His  own  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  His 
Son;  "whereof  he  hath  given  assurance  unto  all 
men,  in  that  he  hath  raised  him  from  the  dead." 

2.  Righteousness.  The  special  characteristic 
of  the  whole  Bible  is  its  insistence  on  the  char- 
acter of  God — that  He  is  absolutely  righteous 
and  holy,  and  claims  of  all  free  beings  whom  He 
has  created  a  like  righteousness  in  their  relation 


The  Doctrine  of  Cod  and  His  Creatures       1 9 


to  Him  and  to  one  another;  and  is  to  be  pro- 
pitiated by  no  gifts  or  sacrifices  or  ceremonies, 
but  only  by  conformity  with  His  own  character ; 
and  has  impressed  a  witness  to  His  righteousness 
upon  the  consciences  of  men,  who  thereby  know 
themselves  to  be  under  God's  righteous  judg- 
ment; and  has  enlightened  their  conscience  by 
the  teaching  of  His  prophets  and  His  Son,  through 
His  Holy  Spirit. 

3.  Love.  The  tremendous  severity  of  the 
divine  righteousness  must  always  cause  men  to 
fear  Him  with  a  holy  fear.  But  the  perfection  of 
righteousness  is  love.  And  finally,  in  the  revela- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ  the  Son,  the  ultimate  nature 
of  God  is  disclosed  as  pure  goodness — such  that 
He  loves  every  creature  that  He  has  created,  and 
intends  nothing  but  good  for  every  one,  and  is 
afflicted  in  every  one's  affliction,  and  shrinks  from 
no  sacrifice  in  order  to  redeem,  and  will  one  day 
manifest  His  sovereign  love  in  the  whole  universe. 

What  more  about  the  nature  of  God  is  ex- 
pressed in  His  revelation  of  His  heart  towards 
man  will  appear  when  we  come  to  speak  of  the 
Holy  Trinity. 

JESUS  CHRIST 

It  has  already  appeared  how  God  revealed  Him- 
self at  last  through  His  own  and  only  begotten 
Son,  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.   Him  men  saw  and 


20  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


heard  as  man  among  men,  and  they  came  to 
believe  in  Him  first  as  prophet,  then  as  the  Christ 
of  God,  and  then  as  His  eternal  Son  or  Word 
incarnate.  The  process  of  this  belief  is  apparent 
in  the  New  Testament,  and  its  conclusion  found 
expression  in  the  Creeds.  The  belief  of  the 
church,  then,  which  is  confirmed  in  the  New 
Testament,  is  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  eternal 
Son  of  God,  "very  God  of  very  God,"  that  is,  "of 
one  substance  with  the  Father;"  by  whom  all 
things  were  made  and  are  sustained  in  being; 
who  for  us  men  and  for  our  salvation  was,  in  the 
fulness  of  time,  made  man  by  a  human  birth, 
through  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  the 
womb  of  the  blessed  Virgin  Mary;  so  that  He 
was  born  "perfect  God  and  perfect  man,"  differ- 
ing in  His  manhood  from  other  men  in  that  He 
was  sinless — God's  new  creation  ;  true  man  in  all 
that  properly  belongs  to  humanity,  but  new  man 
— the  second  Adam,  free  from  all  the  taint  and 
hindrance  of  sin.  In  this  our  manhood,  in  the 
power  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  He  lived  and  taught 
and  gathered  disciples  and  founded  His  church : 
in  this  manhood  He  was  rejected,  and  suffered 
and  was  crucified :  upon  the  cross  He  truly  died, 
and  His  dead  body  was  laid  in  the  grave,  while 
His  spirit  went  where  all  human  spirits  go — to 
hell,  or  Hades,  the  place  of  the  dead,  where  He 
preached  His  gospel  to  the  dead  also :  and  on  the 


The  Doctrine  of  Cod  and  His  Creatures  21 


third  day,  by  the  power  of  God,  He  was  raised 
from  the  dead — not  resuscitated  to  His  old  man- 
ner of  life,  but  transformed  in  His  bodily  nature 
into  the  condition  of  the  "spiritual  body,"  a  state 
of  existence  which  S.  Paul  declares  to  be  the 
destiny  of  us  all."  In  this  risen  body  He  appeared 
to  His  disciples  during  forty  days  for  the  con- 
firmation of  their  faith  and  for  their  further  in- 
struction, and  mounted  out  of  their  sight  by  an 
ascension  above  the  clouds  which  represented  to 
their  eyes  the  spiritual  truth  of  His  assumption 
to  the  throne  of  all  the  world,  whence  He  shall 
come  again  in  the  final  Day  of  the  Lord  to  be  the 
judge  of  quick  and  dead. 

These  events  in  our  Lord's  human  life  which 
have  fallen  within  the  scope  of  human  experience 
can  be  expressed  in  literal  human  language. 
Thus  He  truly  was  born  of  the  Virgin,  and  truly 
died,  and  truly  after  His  resurrection  appeared  to 
His  disciples  and  ascended  to  heaven.  But,  so 
far  as  concerns  what  lies  outside  human  experi- 
ence, what  concerns  His  going  to  the  place  of 
departed  spirits,  or  hell,  and  His  "sitting  in 
heaven  at  the  right  hand  of  God,"  we  can  only  use 
symbolical  language,  for  we  have  no  experience 
of  any  world  but  this,  and  consequently  no  human 
words  properly  to  express  either  the  abode  and 
state  of  the  dead  or  the  abode  of  God.  And  the 
-  See  later,  pp.  82-87. 


22 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


same  applies  to  all  statements  about  the  being 
of  God,  except  so  far  as  He  has  appeared  as  man 
in  human  experience;  and  to  much  of  the  lan- 
guage used  about  angels  and  about  the  creation 
of  the  world  and  the  last  things.  Of  all  matters 
which  lie  outside  human  experience  we  can  only- 
use  symbolical  or  analogical  language.  "We  see 
through  a  glass  darkly"- — an  enigmatic  reflection 
as  in  a  metal  mirror.  The  mercy  is  that  in  Christ 
God  has  so  manifested  Himself  within  human 
experience  that  we  can  speak  of  Him  also  in  the 
language  of  literal  historical  facts.  That  is  the 
glory  of  our  creed. 

The  redemptive  work  of  our  Lord  is  manifold, 
but  it  may  be  summarized  under  three  heads.  It 
is  example,  atonement,  new  life — or  the  pattern 
set  before  us,  the  sacrifice  offered  for  us,  the  new 
life  wrought  in  us. 

1.  The  example  or  pattern  of  human  life.  By 
His  words  He  has  taught  us  all  that  human  life 
may  be,  when  lived  in  the  light  of  God.  By  His 
deeds  He  showed  what  power  can  work  in  human 
life  to  dispel  disease  and  misery.  By  all  His  con- 
duct He  proved  how  rich  and  glorious  a  thing 
human  life  can  be.  Henceforth  the  world  can 
never  forget  it.  Cynics  and  pessimists  stand  for- 
ever rebuked.  There  is  the  true  Son  of  Man.  The 
fruit  of  constant  meditation  on  the  Gospels  is  to 
fix  in  our  souls  indelibly  an  image  which  will 


The  Doctrine  of  Cod  and  His  Creatures  23 


never  sui¥er  us  to  be  content  in  ourselves  or  others 
with  sensuality  or  selfishness  or  bitterness  or  con- 
tempt or  hypocrisy  or  worldliness. 

2.  Atonement.  But  v^^hat  of  the  past,  the  hor- 
rible, ever  self-renewing  past  of  humanity  and  of 
myself?  How  can  we  escape  the  contagion  of  the 
world  and  of  our  own  selves?  How  can  we  break 
the  chain  and  sequence  of  sin?  All  the  world 
over  men  have  been  seeking  God  and  coming  be- 
fore Him  with  offerings  and  sacrifices,  feeling  that 
God  must  have  of  their  best,  and  seeking  to  render 
themselves  acceptable  to  Him.  But  the  conclu- 
sion is  ever  the  same — that  God  does  not  want 
those  things,  for  they  are  His  own  already ;  and 
"the  blood  of  bulls  and  of  goats  cannot  take  away 
sin."  Meanwhile  the  man  himself  remains  con- 
scious in  his  innermost  soul  that  he  cannot  break 
with  his  own  past  or  the  past  of  humanity  to 
which  he  belongs:  "I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips, 
and  I  dwell  among  a  people  of  unclean  lips."  It 
is  to  this  sort  of  feeling  that  the  preaching  of  the 
atonement  has  appealed.  And  there  is  no  doubt 
how  universal  its  appeal  has  been. 

In  Jesus  Christ  our  manhood  took  a  fresh  start. 
He  is  true  man,  but  new  man — wholly  free  from 
the  taint  of  sin.  He  alone  realizes  perfectly  the 
guilt  of  sin,  because  He  alone  does  not  share  it. 
He  alone  realizes  perfectly  what  man  ought  to  be 
towards  God.   His  life  from  end  to  end  is  a  per- 


24  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


feet  sacrifice.  When  the  sin  which  is  in  the  world 
refused  Him  and  rejected  Him,  because  men 
would  not  part  from  their  selfishness,  their  indo- 
lence, and  their  pride — when  sin  in  the  people  of 
Israel  closed  in  upon  Him  and  brought  Him  to 
the  cross — He  recognized  in  the  cross  the  will  of 
God,  and  was  obedient  unto  death.  There  at  last 
in  blood  and  agony  He  accomplished  His  sacrifice 
of  perfect  obedience.  This  is  the  New  Man's  act 
of  reparation  for  all  the  lawlessness  and  wilful- 
ness of  the  old  humanity.  He  offers  Himself 
without  spot  to  God,  and  the  perfect  sacrifice  of 
self  is  perfectly  acceptable  to  God.  It  frees  the 
hand  of  God  to  give  to  man,  in  Him,  all  that  He 
would  give.  This  is  why  the  atonement  is  called 
also  propitiation.  Not  because  it  changes  the  dis- 
position of  God  towards  us,  but  because  it  enables 
Him  freely  to  exhibit  His  mercy. 

In  Him  mankind  is  reconciled  to  God.  He 
stands  in  will  and  intention  for  every  man,  as  on 
earth  He  identified  Himself  with  every  man  and 
disowned  no  one.  Actually  it  means  that  every 
one  who  will  come  with  entire  faith  in  Him  and 
become  by  baptism  identified  with  Him,  however 
sinful  or  imperfect  he  may  be,  can  claim  the  for- 
giveness of  his  sins  in  His  name,  and  can  make  a 
fresh  start  from  a  new  standing-ground — in 
Christ.  He  is  washed  white  in  the  blood  of  the 
Lamb.    This  is  the  doctrine  of  "Christ  for  us." 


The  Doctrine  of  Cod  and  His  Creatures  25 


There  are  no  sins  too  many  or  too  great  for  God 
to  forgive.  There  is  no  one  who  cannot  break 
with  his  past  and  start  afresh.  Wholly  without 
reference  to  any  merits  of  ours,  simply  by  the 
free  gift  of  God's  unmerited  love,  we  can,  every 
one  of  us,  identify  ourselves  with  Christ  by  faith, 
and  that  a  thousand  times  over  after  a  thousand 
relapses,  and  in  His  name  be  reconciled  to  God — 
absolved  and  set  free  from  all  the  guilt  of  the 
past :  "I  will  run  the  way  of  Thy  commandments, 
because  Thou  hast  set  my  heart  at  liberty." 

3.  But  it  is  quite  plain  that  the  redemption  of 
man  must  be  something  within  him.  If  he  is 
alienated  from  God  nothing  can  restore  him  ex- 
cept such  inward  restoration  as  makes  him  once 
again  God-like.  There  is  no  fellowship  with  God 
possible  except  in  likeness  to  God.  This  is  the 
central  and  continuous  witness  of  the  Bible. 
Thus  no  view  of  our  redemption  by  Christ  would 
be  tolerable  which  should  find  its  sole  or  its  chief 
expression  in  anything  done  for  us.  That  can 
only  be  the  prelude  to  what  is  done  in  us.  The 
moral  difficulties  which  have  been  felt  so  widely 
about  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  atonement 
have  been  due  in  part  to  this  consideration  being 
ignored.  Christ  for  us  has  been  separated  from 
Christ  in  us.  But  this  is  quite  unjustifiable.  Our 
Lord  is  represented  in  the  Gospels  as  plainly 
instructing  His  disciples  that  their  future  enlight- 


26 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


enment  and  inward  renewal  by  His  Spirit  would 
be  something  far  greater  than  anything  which  He 
could  do  for  them  while  He  was  among  them. 
Moreover,  substitution  is  a  very  poor  word  to 
describe  our  Lord's  relation  to  us  even  in  His 
sacrifice. 

He  always  appears  as  claiming  men's  identifi- 
cation with  Himself  in  the  spirit  of  His  sacrifice. 
No  idea  of  forgiveness  which  is  consistent  with  a 
refusal  on  our  own  part  of  service  and  sacrifice 
can,  for  a  moment,  be  read  into  Christ's  words  or 
those  of  His  apostles.  But  His  identification  with 
men  was  very  imperfect  while  He  was  still  among 
them  as  one  among  many.  Accordingly  His 
glorification  in  heaven  is  represented  as  only  the 
necessary  beginning  of  His  full  activity  among 
men.  If  the  heavens  cleaved  around  His  ascend- 
ing form  and  hid  it  from  sight,  it  is  but  a  few  days 
before  they  cleave  again  around  the  descending 
Spirit;  and  that  Spirit  comes  not  so  much  to 
supply  His  absence  as  to  accomplish  His  presence, 
His  presence  with  men  in  His  body,  which  is  the 
church. 

THE  HOLY  SPIRIT 

Spirit  means  breath  or  life.  Thus  the  Spirit  of 
God  is  that  person  of  the  ever-blessed  Trinity  who 
represents  the  breath  or  life  of  God.  Thus  "the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  filleth  the  world."   All  the  life 


The  Doctrine  of  God  and  His  Creatures  27 


of  nature  and  all  the  activities  of  man,  social,  in- 
dustrial, and  artistic,  are  in  the  Old  Testament 
ascribed  to  the  Spirit.  But  because  God's  right- 
eous character  is  the  attribute  of  God  which  is 
there  most  emphasized,  so  the  Spirit  is  before  all 
else  Holy  Spirit,  and  He  cannot  dwell  with  un- 
righteousness and  sin. 

Only  here  and  there  a  man,  prophet  or  other,  is 
recognized  as  possessed  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  But 
a  more  abundant  outpouring  is  anticipated  not 
only  upon  the  Christ  who  is  to  be,  but  also  upon 
His  people,  universally,  in  the  day  of  Christ.  And 
it  is  this  anticipation  which  is  fulfilled  through 
Jesus  Christ,  so  fully  that  by  comparison  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  spoken  of  as  given  for  the  first  time  in  the 
great  outpouring  on  the  Day  of  Pentecost.  Thus 
the  distinguishing  marks  of  the  Pentecostal  out- 
pouring are  two. 

1.  The  Holy  Spirit  came  down  from  the  up- 
lifted Christ,  the  head  of  the  new  and  redeemed 
humanity,  to  fill  the  company  and  fellowship  of 
men  who  are  to  carry  on  His  work  in  the  world; 
so  that  they  shall  be  His  organ  or  "body,"  in 
which  He  can  live,  and  through  which  he  can  act, 
by  His  Spirit  which  He  has  given  them. 

2.  The  other  distinguishing  mark  of  this  new 
gift  of  the  Spirit  is  that  it  is  freely  given  to  all 
the  members  of  the  body.  They  are  already,  and 
are  to  continue  to  be,  a  body  with  different  func- 


28  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


tions.  There  are  apostles  and  other  members, 
men  and  women.  But  on  all  alike  is  the  Holy 
Spirit  poured  out  for  enlightenment  and  for 
strength,  for  work  and  for  witness.  And  if  an 
early  Christian  had  been  asked  what,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  other  men,  a  Christian  is,  he 
would  have  given  one  of  two  answers— either 
that  he  is  a  man  who  has  come  to  believe  in  Jesus 
as  Christ  and  Lord,  or  that  he  is  a  man  who  has, 
and  knows  he  has,  received  His  Spirit.  But  I 
must  say  more  about  this  when  I  come,  very  soon, 
to  write  about  the  ministry  of  the  Spirit. 

THE  HOLY  TRINITY 

Now  we  must  pause  for  a  moment  reverently 
to  consider  the  effect  of  all  this  redemptive  work 
of  God  for  men  upon  their  thought  of  God.  The 
name  of  God — the  Jehovah  or  Lord  of  the  Old 
Testament — has  become  to  them  now  the  name 
of  the  Father,  about  whom  Jesus  Christ  had 
taught  them  so  abundantly  as  His  Father  and 
theirs;  and  the  name  of  the  Son,  Jesus  Christ 
Himself,  who  had  come  out  of  the  bosom  of  the 
Father  to  reveal  Him,  in  whom  they  believed  and 
whom  they  worshipped ;  and  the  name  of  the 
Spirit — the  Holy  Spirit  through  whom  they  had 
abiding  union  with  the  Son  and  the  Father. 

The  name  of  God  is  henceforth  the  name  of  the 


The  Doctrine  of  God  and  His  Creatures  29 


Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
three  persons — so  they  came  to  express  it,  using 
the  best  word  they  could  find — in  one  God.  For 
"the  Father  is  God  and  the  Son  is  God  and  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  God,  and  yet  they  are  not  three 
Gods,  but  one  God."  "In  this  Trinity  there  is  no 
before  or  after,  no  greater  or  less,  but  the  whole 
three  persons  are  coeternal  together  and  coequal" 
Trinity  in  Unity  and  Unity  in  Trinity. 

This  formula  was  the  outcome  of  the  original 
experience  of  the  church.  At  the  side  of  the 
eternal  Father  was  a  Son,  whom  as  man  among 
men  they  had  come  to  know,  whom  they  had  come 
to  believe  in  as  very  God  of  very  God ;  and  from 
the  Father  and  the  Son  had  come  forth  the  Spirit 
whom  Christ  had  spoken  of  as  "another,"  whom 
they  had  learned  to  think  of  as  a  living,  divine 
person  with  whom  they  had  to  deal.  And  these 
divine  three  they  knew  were  not  three  Gods.  It 
was  but  the  one  God  of  Israel's  old  faith  more 
fully  disclosing  Himself.  The  three  moreover 
are  not  separable  individuals.  Wherever  the 
Father  acts.  He  acts  through  the  Son,  whether 
in  creation  or  redemption,  and  by  His  Spirit. 
Wherever  the  Son  acts,  it  is  the  Father  who  is 
acting  in  Him  ;  and  when  He  sends  the  Spirit,  the 
Spirit  in  His  coming  brings  the  Son  and  the 
Father.  It  is  one  only  God.  Only  as  God  has 
come  nearer  to  men  to  redeem  them  something  of 


30 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


His  inner  being  has  been  disclosed.  It  is  not  a 
monotonous  unity  that  reveals  itself,  but  an 
eternal  fellowship  of  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit. 
That  is  to  say,  it  is  the  sort  of  unity  which  we  can 
think  of  as  alive  and  real,  even  before  ever  the 
world  was.  In  the  mutual  relationship  of  the 
divine  persons  we  can  understand  how  God  in  His 
eternal  being  is  Love ;  and  we  can  understand 
further  why  when  He  calls  men  unto  fellowship 
with  Himself  it  is  always  in  society  and  not  as 
isolated  individuals ;  it  is  as  a  family,  or  a  nation 
or  a  church ;  in  any  case  as  a  fellowship  of  some 
sort.  Because  God  Himself  is  eternal  fellowship 
and  eternal  love,  loneliness  and  selfishness  cannot 
express  Him. 

HUMAN  NATURE  AND  SIN.   ANGELS  AND  DEVILS 

It  is  sometimes  remarked  that  there  is  very 
little  about  man  or  sin  in  the  Creeds,  except  just 
at  the  end.  This  is  because  it  is  the  main  purpose 
of  the  Creeds  to  summarize  what  God  has  done 
for  man,  and  revealed  about  Himself  in  doing  it. 
But  there  is  much  about  man  that  is  taken  for 
granted ;  otherwise  men  could  not  have  been  the 
subjects  of  divine  redemption,  nor  could  the  Lord 
of  all  have  been  made  man. 

What  is  taken  for  granted  is  that  man  was 
made  "in  God's  image" — that  is  to  say,  that  he  is 


The  Doctrine  of  Cod  and  His  Creatures 


31 


spirit  as  well  as  body,  a  personality  and  not  a 
thing,  endowed  with  intelligence  and  free-will, 
and  made  to  be  God's  vicegerent  in  the  world 
which  was  entrusted  to  his  government.  It  is 
the  sense  of  this  great  dignity  of  man  which  is 
renewed  in  our  minds  as  we  contemplate  the  Son 
of  Man.  And  the  motive  of  the  divine  redemption 
lies  in  the  fact  that  our  race,  though  created  for  so 
lofty  a  vocation,  have  plunged  so  deep  into  sin  and 
have  so  deeply  defaced  in  themselves  the  image  of 
God,  that  only  the  self-sacrificing  act  of  God  in 
redeeming  them  can  raise  them  from  ruin  or 
enable  them  to  realize  the  purpose  of  God. 
"Neither  is  there  any  other  name  under  heaven, 
that  is  given  among  men,  save  the  name  of  Jesus, 
wherein  we  must  be  saved." 

It  is  possible  for  one  who  thinks  only  of  God's 
majesty  to  despise  men.  The  overwhelming 
thought  of  the  sovereignty  of  God  in  the  mind  of 
some  of  the  greatest  Christians,  S.  Augustine  and 
Calvin '  for  instance,  has  made  them  disparage  or 
ignore  man's  right  to  be  equitably  treated. 

But  God  has  in  fact  given  men  such  a  right  in 
making  them  persons  and  giving  them  a  con- 
science. And  the  doctrine  of  the  Bible  as  a  whole, 
and  of  our  Lord  in  particular,  recognizes  to  the 
full  the  dignity  bestowed  upon  every  single  child 
of  man  by  his  Creator,  and  the  equitable  and  more 

'  I  do  not  think  that  S.  Paul  can  justly  be  accused  of  this. 


32 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


than  equitable  love  of  God  for  each  and  every  one 
— "who  will  have  all  men  to  be  saved  and  to  come 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth" — "who  is  the 
saviour  of  all  men,"  if  they  will  only  have  it  so. 

And  the  Bible  has  a  profoundly  simple  explana- 
tion of  the  terrible  condition  of  humanity,  which 
seems  to  cry  out  against  the  very  idea  either  of 
man's  dignity  or  of  God's  justice.  The  explana- 
tion is  sin.  The  disorder  of  the  world  is  due  to 
sin.  Voluntary  correspondence  with  God  is  only 
possible  if  refusal  of  correspondence  is  also  pos- 
sible— that  is,  lawlessness.  This  is  the  Bible  doc- 
trine of  sin.  Sin  is  lawlessness.  It  is  refusal  to 
obey  the  will  of  God :  and  there  is  not  in  the  whole 
universe  any  other  kind  of  lawlessness.  It  is  the 
foolish  claim  of  the  creature  to  be  independent 
of  the  Creator  that  has  wrought  all  this  havoc. 
That  is  why  man  needs  to  be  redeemed. 

And  we  must  extend  our  view  beyond  the 
bounds  of  mankind.  In  this  vast  universe  there  is 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  men  are  the  only  free 
and  intelligent  beings.  Indeed  it  is  almost  un- 
imaginable. Certainly  our  Lord  and  the  prophets 
and  apostles  would  have  us  believe  that  beyond 
man  there  are  vast  hosts  of  intelligent  spirits, 
good  and  bad,  angels  and  devils.  And  the 
struggle  between  good  and  evil  in  this  world  is 
thus  thrown  upon  the  background  of  a  vaster 
scene  of  conflict.    "We  wrestle  not  against  flesh 


The  Doctrine  of  God  and  His  Creatures  33 


and  blood,  but  against  the  principalities,  against 
the  powers,  against  the  world-rulers  of  this  dark- 
ness, the  spiritual  hosts  of  wickedness."  "Your 
adversary  the  devil,  as  a  roaring  lion,  walketh 
about,  seeking  whom  he  may  devour :  whom  with- 
stand steadfast  in  your  faith."*  And  the  good 
angels  are  not  only  the  worshipping  host  of 
heaven,  not  only  mysterious  forces  in  nature,  but 
also  "ministering  spirits  sent  forth  to  do  service" 
for  men. 

But  into  this  dimly-known  background  of 
human  life  we  must  carry  back  the  same  principle. 
All  created  beings  were  made  by  God  in  love  and 
for  good.  If  they  have  become  evil,  it  is  because 
they  have  used  against  God,  by  a  perverted  free- 
dom, the  power  that  was  given  them  to  use  for 
Him.   Wherever  sin  is,  it  is  lawlessness. 

And  it  does  not  need  any  revelation,  either  in 
any  other  age  or  to-day,  to  tell  us  how  deep  and 
wide  is  the  havoc  which  sin  has  wrought.  All 
men  have  sinned.  And  sin  has  been  disastrous  in 
its  effects,  as  is  shown  in  experience.  And  be- 
cause men  are  not  entirely  individual,  but  are 
united  by  physical  and  social  bonds  in  families 
and  races  and  the  one  common  race,  so  sin  has 
infected  and  disordered  the  whole  race  of  man- 
kind. It  is  already  in  us  before  the  beginning  of 
our  personal  consciousness.  "In  sin  hath  my 
*Eph.  vi.  12;  1  S.  Pet.  v.  8. 


34  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


mother  conceived  me."  This  is  the  Christian  doc- 
trine of  sin,  "actual"  and  "original,"  or  individual 
and  social. 

No  student  of  this  doctrine,  in  particular  no 
student  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ,  will  ever 
echo  the  foolish  idea  that  sin  is  a  survival  in  us 
of  our  animal  ancestry  which  we  are  outgrowing. 
True  it  infects  the  body ;  but  its  seed  is  in  the 
spirit.  It  is  wilfulness  and  selfishness — the  re- 
fusal of  God.  Our  Lord  will  not  let  us  think  that 
bodily  sins — drunkenness  and  lust — are  worse 
than  selfishness  and  pride,  or  that  the  sin  of  the 
barbarian  is  any  way  greater  or  more  serious  than 
the  sin  of  the  highly  civilized  man.  In  fact  the 
opposite  is  the  case.  Sin  accompanies  every  stage 
of  human  development,  and  threatens  with  dis- 
aster every  individual  and  every  civilization.  And 
such  is  the  respect  with  which  God  treats  the 
freedom  of  man  that  He  endures  all  the  awful 
havoc  which  sin  has  made,  while  everywhere,  in 
the  soul  of  every  human  being,  and  on  the  great 
stage  of  the  world,  He  is  working  for  redemption 
— redemption  which  is  by  sacrifice. 

That  is  the  call  of  Christ,  then— the  call  to 
redemption.  There  is  no  one  who  does  not  need 
to  be  redeemed.  It  is  true  that  Christ  does  more 
than  redeem  us — He  brings  us  to  perfection. 
Man  was  created  at  the  bottom  of  the  ladder  of 
progress.    He  was  not  created  perfect,  but  only 


The  Doclrine  of  Cod  and  His  Creatures  35 


capable  of  attaining  perfection  by  the  grace  of 
God.  The  humanity  which  is  revealed  in  Christ 
is  not  humanity  as  it  was  created,  but  humanity 
at  the  very  height  of  its  possibilities.  Christ  con- 
summates humanity  as  well  as  redeems  it.  None 
the  less,  every  single  human  being  is  in  sin,  and 
needs  redemption,  and  not  merely  development. 
He  needs  a  fresh  start — to  be  converted  or  turned  ; 
to  be  regenerated  or  grafted  upon  a  fresh  stock — 
the  stock  of  Christ. 

But  this,  and  the  great  and  eternal  destiny  of 
man,  we  shall  have  to  consider  in  succeeding 
chapters. 


CHAPTER  IV 


The  Church  and  the  Sacraments 


HEN  the  Holy  Spirit  came  down  from 


V  Y  Christ  in  heaven  on  the  day  of  Pentecost, 
He  came  to  fill  with  Christ's  own  life  the  church 
which  had  been  already  gathered  to  await  His 
coming.  Henceforth  the  church  is  Christ's  body, 
one  organism  (if  I  may  so  speak)  with  its  Head 
in  Heaven,'  and  His  living  instrument  for  His 
work  in  the  world.  Thus  it  stands  a  visible  insti- 
tution in  history  from  the  first  chapter  of  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles  onward,  awaiting  the  conversion 
of  individuals  to  Christ.  The  individual  converts 
did  not  combine  to  form  the  church.  It  was  there 
before  them.  Conversion  leads  necessarily  to 
incorporation  in  the  church.  It  could  lead  to 
nothing  else :  for  there  is  no  belonging  to  Christ 
except  by  membership  in  His  body.     As  the 

^  S.  John,  we  should  note,  represents  our  Lord  as  speaking 
of  Himself  as  "the  vine"  of  which  we  men  are  the  branches 
— branches  included  in  the  vine;  and  S.  Paul  speaks  simi- 
larly of  Christ  as  consisting  of  the  Head  and  the  members. 
See  S.  John  xv.  5,  1  Cor.  xii.  12. 


The  Church  and  the  Sacraments  37 


Gospel  is  preached  in  city  after  city  churches  arise 
— the  church  of  Corinth,  the  church  of  Ephesus, 
and  so  on ;  but  each  of  these  churches  is  the  local 
representative  of  the  one  church.  It  is  all  one 
gradually  expanding  fellowship  :  the  church  is  one 
as  Christ  is  one :  holy  because  consecrated  in  Him 
by  His  Spirit :  catholic  because  there  can  be  in  it 
"neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  male  nor  female,  bar- 
barian, Scythian,  bond  nor  free."  It  is  the 
destined  home  of  all  human  beings  simply  in 
virtue  of  their  being  men  or  women.  It  is  one  all- 
embracing  community,  destined  to  extend  itself 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  bind  in  one  faith  and 
fellowship  all  kinds  and  classes  of  men. 

The  idea  that  the  essence  of  Christianity  lies  in 
a  merely  individual  faith  in  Christ,  and  that 
church  membership  is  a  secondary  thing,  is  not  to 
be  found  in  the  New  Testament.  The  fatherhood 
of  God  and  the  salvation  wrought  by  Christ  are 
to  be  realized  only  in  the  brotherhood  of  men, 
which  is  the  church.  It  is  very  difficult  for  men, 
different  as  they  are  in  temperament,  class,  and 
race,  to  become  or  to  remain  one  brotherhood. 
The  New  Testament  abundantly  illustrates  the 
difficulty.  In  overcoming  it  is  to  be  found  the  real 
triumph  of  Christ.  "He  hath  made  both  (Jew  and 
Gentile)  one."  According  to  the  New  Testament 
all  men  by  their  true  nature  are  intended  for 
brotherhood,  but  only  in  Christ  can  they  really 


38 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


become  brothers.  Thus,  the  church  is  "the 
brotherhood."  S.  Paul  would  not  have  tolerated 
for  a  moment  the  idea  of  two  churches  at  Corinth 
or  Ephesus,  one  for  Jews  and  one  for  Gentiles,  or 
one  for  free  men  and  one  for  slaves.  He  would 
not  have  tolerated  the  idea  that  a  man  can  first 
believe  and  then  choose  which  church  to  belong 
to.  There  can  be  only  one  church  to  which  all 
believers  are,  by  their  faith,  bound  to  belong.  It 
is  Christ  who  by  His  sacrifice  has  broken  down 
the  barriers  between  man  and  man,  and  made  it 
possible  for  men  in  Him  to  accomplish  the  diffi- 
cult task  of  realizing  and  maintaining  unity. 

But  we  must  stop  to  consider  two  difficulties 
which  naturally  present  themselves  to  our  minds. 

1.  The  doctrine  of  "salvation  only  in  the 
church"  seems  a  narrow  doctrine  from  two  points 
of  view — first,  because  it  has  been  interpreted  to 
mean  that  everlasting  misery  is  the  destiny  of  all 
who  are  not  members  of  the  church,  whether 
heathen  abroad  or  unbelievers  at  home.  But  this 
is  a  mistake.  We  know  for  certain  the  character 
of  God  as  it  is  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ.  We  know 
that  in  a  real  sense  all  men  by  their  very  nature 
belong  to  Christ  in  whom  "all  things,"  and  much 
more  all  rational  beings,  "consist."  We  know 
also  that  God's  opportunities  extend  beyond  the 
limits  of  this  life.  He  will  deal  equitably  with 
every  soul.   He  alone  can  judge.   He  will  never 


The  Church  and  the  Sacramenls 


39 


condemn  any  one  who  has  tried  honestly  to  be 
true  to  the  best  light  he  had :  of  that  we  may  feel 
quite  sure.  But  the  great  salvation  which  Christ 
brings  is  to  be  a  visibly  manifested  thing,  as 
Christ  was  visibly  manifested.  It  is  represented 
by  "a  city  set  on  a  hill."  It  is  a  great  organized 
society  going  out  into  all  the  world  in  the  saving 
power  of  Christ.  When  we  say  that  salvation  is 
to  be  found  only  in  the  church  we  mean  not  some- 
thing reserved  in  the  unknown  depths  of  God's 
mercy,  but  something  here  and  now  covenanted, 
accepted,  experienced  and  proclaimed. 

2.  But  Christianity  has  been  a  long  time  in  the 
world,  and  there  are  all  kinds  of  Christian 
churches  not  in  communion  with  one  another.  It 
is  surely  narrow  to  proclaim  that  there  is  only 
one  church ;  for,  whatever  definition  you  may 
give  of  the  church,  you  are  sure  to  "unchurch" 
a  number  of  very  excellent  Christians  who  belong 
to  other  communions  which  you  do  not  recognize. 
This  is  the  greatest  of  difficulties,  and  we  must 
come  back  to  it  before  we  have  done.  But  now  I 
would  ask  you  simply  to  consider,  with  a  quiet 
and  determined  contemplation,  what  is  the  inten- 
tion expressed  in  the  New  Testament,  which  is 
indeed  the  intention  of  Christ.  He  meant  all  His 
disciples  to  be  one  in  a  visible  unity.  There  is  no 
mention  of  any  invisible  church  in  this  world. 
And  to-day,  amid  the  clamour  of  our  class  divi- 


40  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


sions,  amid  the  horror  of  nominally  Christian 
nations  engaged  in  slaughtering  one  another,  we 
turn  again  longingly  to  Christ's  intention.  It  is 
schism  that  is  narrow,  not  catholicity.  It  is 
schism — providing  a  separate  church  for  each 
nation,  a  separate  church  for  each  class  or  each 
distinctive  disposition  of  men — it  is  schism  that 
makes  the  witness  of  Christ  so  feeble  in  the  world. 
And  the  doctrine  of  the  one  catholic  church,  con- 
straining all  men  who  profess  belief  in  Christ  to 
discipline  themselves  enough  to  live  in  unbroken 
fellowship — a  fellowship  which  transcends  all 
natural  divisions  of  race  and  class — it  is  this  alone 
that  can  give  us  a  really  broad  Christianity.  "We 
are  all  one  manhood  in  Christ  Jesus."  And,  in- 
deed, the  world  to-day  would  be  far  better  off,  the 
witness  to  Christ  would  be  far  better  borne,  if  in 
every  country  we  had  but  half  the  number  that 
we  now  have  of  nominal  Christians,  but  these 
maintaining  the  unity  of  the  spirit  in  the  bond 
of  peace. 

Our  Lord,  then,  certainly  meant  all  the  be- 
lievers in  His  name  to  feel  the  obligation  of 
belonging  to  the  one  church.  That  is  the  unmis- 
takable witness  of  the  New  Testament.  The  very 
difficulty  of  maintaining  such  a  unity  among  all 
the  differences  of  human  nature  is  to  be  one  main 
trial  of  the  sincerity  of  our  faith.  And  the  reality 
of  our  obligation  to  maintain  the  unity  of  the 


The  Church  and  the  Sacraments 


41 


society  is  brought  home  to  us  by  the  institution 
of  visible  sacraments  as  instruments  of  spiritual 
grace. 

THE  SACRAMENTS 

The  sacraments  are  "outward  and  visible  signs 
of  an  inward  and  spiritual  grace  given  unto  us." 
In  their  principle  they  are  in  harmony  with  the 
whole  system  of  the  material  universe.  For  every- 
thing visible  in  the  world  expresses  some  spiritual 
meaning  and  contains  some  spiritual  force.  We 
men  ourselves  are  embodied  spirits,  and  spiritual 
reality  must  come  home  to  us,  like  all  other 
reality,  through  our  bodily  organs.  It  is  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  deep  necessity  of  our  being  that 
"The  Word  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us." 
And  the  church  with  its  visible  sacraments  is  the 
extension  in  idea  and  in  reality  of  the  incarnation. 
The  gifts  of  God  in  Christ  are  not  to  depend  upon 
our  subjective  feelings,  but  upon  the  will  of  God, 
and  are  guaranteed  to  our  wills  by  the  outward 
sign. 

But  also  the  sacraments  are  social  ceremonies 
— ceremonies  connected  with  membership.  Bap- 
tism, as  taken  over  by  the  catholic  from  the  Jew- 
ish church,  was  regarded  not  only  as  a  ceremony 
of  personal  cleansing,  but  also  as  admission  into 
the  holy  community.  "By  one  Spirit  were  we  all 
baptized  into  one  body."  Confirmation  is  an  out- 


42 


The  Religion  of  ihe  Church 


ward  blessing  of  each  admitted  member  by  the 
local  head  of  the  community,  and  conveys  to  him 
his  equipment  for  full  membership.  The  Holy 
Communion  is  a  common  sharing  of  the  one  bread 
and  the  one  cup — the  speaking  symbols  of  mem- 
bership. Absolution  is  restoration  to  the  fellow- 
ship of  the  community.  Ordination  is  appointment 
to  office  in  the  community.  Thus,  by  making 
sacraments,  visible  ceremonies  of  a  visible  society, 
to  be  the  instruments  of  spiritual  grace  to  the  in- 
dividual— by  making  these  social  sacraments  to 
be  the  provided  means  of  personal  salvation — God 
has  made  it  apparent  that  His  salvation  is  no  gift 
to  isolated  individuals,  but  a  gift  given  to  mem- 
bers of  a  body,  a  gift  for  membership. 

Only  it  needs  to  be  remembered  that  when  we 
say  that  the  great  sacraments  are  "generally  nec- 
essary to  salvation"  we  do  not  limit  the  power  of 
God  to  give  to  individuals  what  He  wills  to  give, 
outside  all  sacraments,  in  this  life  or  beyond  it. 
We  are  speaking  of  salvation  in  the  sense  ex- 
plained above  as  something  open,  covenanted,  and 
proclaimed. 

As  to  the  number  of  the  sacraments  there  has 
been  much  controversy.  If  you  take  the  general 
definition  of  sacraments  to  be  "outward  and  vis- 
ible signs  of  an  inward  and  spiritual  grace  given" 
you  may  reckon  a  large  number  of  sacraments.  If 
you  add  to  your  definition  "ordained  by  Christ 


The  Church  and  the  Sacraments  43 


Himself" — that  is,  ordained  by  Him  in  their  out- 
ward form  during  His  earthly  ministry  as  re- 
corded in  the  four  Gospels,  then  you  must  reckon 
them  as  two  only.  But,  in  accepting  this 
definition,  the  Church  of  England,  in  our  present 
Prayer  Book,  does  not  exclude  the  use  of  the  word 
sacrament  in  a  less  restricted  sense.  I  propose 
in  this  book  to  treat  as  sacraments,  besides  the 
two  great  "sacraments  of  the  Gospel",  Baptism 
and  the  Holy  Communion,  also  Confirmation — 
which  is  the  apostolic  completion  of  baptism, — 
the  reconciliation  of  the  penitent  or  Penance, 
Matrimony,  Ordination,  and  Unction  of  the  Sick, 
which,  in  the  greater  part  of  the  catholic  church, 
are  reckoned  as  the  sacraments. ' 

I  must  add  that  sacraments  were  entrusted  to 
the  church,  which  has  authority  under  Christ,  to 
"bind"  and  "loose,"  that  is,  to  legislate  with  divine 
sanction ;  and  therefore,  except  so  far  as  the  out- 
ward ceremony  was  fixed  once  for  all  by  the 
authority  of  Christ  and  His  apostles,  the  church 
must  be  regarded  as  having  authority  to  deter- 
mine the  conditions  of  administration — that  is, 

"There  is  considerable  ancient  authority  for  speaking  of 
only  two  sacraments  if  confirmation  is  included  in  baptism, 
or  of  three  if  confirmation  is  reckoned  apart.  But  so  much 
misunderstanding  has  resulted  from  not  reckoning  as  sac- 
raments matrimony,  ordination,  and  the  reconciliation  of 
penitents  that  I  think  we  had  better  reform — not  our  doc- 
trine but  our  nomenclature. 


44 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


to  decide  what  constitutes  a  "valid"  sacrament, 
meaning  by  the  word  "valid"  a  sacrament  which 
the  church  recognizes  and  ratifies.  A  sacrament 
may  be  irregular  in  the  conditions  of  its  adminis- 
tration, but  still  valid  and  not  to  be  repeated.  I 
hope  I  need  not  add  that  God  is  not  tied  by  condi- 
tions of  validity,  but  can  give  His  blessing  where 
and  how  He  sees  fit.  But  every  society  must  have 
for  its  official  action  conditions  of  validity. 

Before  I  go  on  further  I  would  seek  to  kindle 
the  imagination  of  my  readers  with  a  sense  of  the 
profound  adaptation  of  the  whole  system  of 
church  and  sacraments  to  the  moral  needs  of  men. 
As  fellowship  in  a  nation  supports  each  citizen 
and  guarantees  his  freedom ;  as  fellowship  in  a 
regiment  sustains  a  soldier's  courage  when,  alone, 
he  might  fail ;  as  fellowship  in  a  trade-union  sup- 
ports the  solitary  worker  with  the  protection  of 
comradeship — so  fellowship  in  the  church  is 
meant  to  sustain  the  weakness  of  the  individual, 
through  all  experiences  of  failure  and  disillusion- 
ment ;  the  sympathy  of  a  common  creed  is  meant 
to  carry  him  through  periods  of  depression  and 
vacillation ;  and  the  gifts  of  divine  grace  as  em- 
bodied and  guaranteed  in  sacraments  are  meant 
to  lift  him  out  of  the  vagaries  of  subjective  emo- 
tion upon  the  solid  ground  of  objective  reality. 

Now  I  propose  to  deal  with  the  sacraments  in 
detail,  and  because  it  is  of  their  very  essence  to  be 


The  Church  and  the  Sacraments  45 


definite  ceremonies,  I  propose  to  state  with  regard 
to  each  what,  in  the  common  judgment  of  the 
church,  is  the  outward  part  of  the  sacrament  that 
is  the  matter  or  visible  material  and  action,  and 
the  form  or  words  defining  the  purpose  and  mean- 
ing of  the  sacrament ;  what  the  inward  spiritual 
grace;  of  what  sort  is  the  appointed  minister;  and 
who  are  the  subjects  or  proper  recipients  of  the 
sacrament. 

Holy  Baptism. — Most  respectable  societies,  ex- 
isting for  any  permanent  objects,  have  some  cere- 
mony of  initiation  or  incorporation.  Baptism, 
then,  is  the  ceremony  of  incorporation  into  Christ 
and  His  church.  Its  outward  matter  is  washing 
with  water. "  Its  form  is  "I  baptize  thee  *  in  the 
name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost."  The  priest  is  the  proper  minister,  but 
baptism  by  any  baptized  individual  is  allowed, 
and  every  Christian  should  be  ready  to  baptize  in 
an  emergency.  Its  inward  and  spiritual  grace, 
that  is,  the  gift  which,  by  the  will  of  God,  is 
declared  to  accompany  the  ceremony,  is  incor- 
poration into  Christ.  The  baptized  person  who 
has  hitherto  been  only  a  member  of  our  sinful 
humanity  is  hereby  regenerated  by  the  Holy 

'  It  should  be  at  least  a  real  pouring  of  water,  and  not 
merely  a  sprinkling. 

*  In  the  Eastern  Church  it  is  "N.,  the  servant  of  God,  is 
baptized  in  the  name,  etc." 


46  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


Ghost ;  that  is,  he  receives  a  new  birth  or  incor- 
poration into  Christ  and  His  body.  He  becomes 
a  member  of  Christ's  family,  with  all  the  priv- 
ileges of  membership ;  and  can  claim,  in  Christ's 
name,  the  forgiveness  of  his  sins.  "We  acknowl- 
edge one  baptism  for  the  remission  of  sins."  This 
is  the  plain  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  and 
of  the  Prayer  Book.  °  I  say  that  he  can  claim,  in 
Christ's  name,  the  forgiveness  of  his  sins :  for 
sacraments  are  not  charms.  They  are  indeed  in 
themselves  effective  instruments  of  divine  grace; 
but,  because  we  are  rational  beings,  God  can  do 
nothing  for  us  without  our  co-operation.  And 
baptism  will  do  a  man  no  spiritual  good  unless 
he,  by  faith,  will  claim  as  his  own  the  gifts  which 
baptism  has  given  him.  Any  unbaptized  person 
may  be  the  subject  of  baptism. 

The  baptismal  services  of  the  church  were 
drawn  up  in  the  first  instance  for  adults  capable 
in  their  own  persons  of  renouncing  the  life  of  sin 
from  which  Christ  redeems  them,  and  professing 
their  belief  in  the  Christian  creed  after  due  in- 
struction, and  their  intention  to  obey  and  follow 
Christ.  Solemn  vows  to  this  effect  have  always 
been  required  of  those  to  be  baptized.  But,  ap- 
parently from  the  first,  the  children  of  Christian 

°See  S.  John  iii.  5;  Acta  ii.  38,  xxii.  16;  Rom.  vi.  3; 
1  Cor.  xii.  13;  Titus  iii.  5:  cf.  the  catechism  and  the  service 
of  baptism. 


The  Church  and  the  Sacraments 


47 


parents  have  been  admitted  into  church  member- 
ship by  baptism  in  their  infancy,  and  sponsors 
representing  the  church  have  answered  on  their 
behalf,  and  have  guaranteed  their  Christian  edu- 
cation if  they  should  survive  infancy.  Without 
some  such  guarantee  the  church  does  not  author- 
ize the  baptism  of  infants.  Indiscriminate  bap- 
tism of  infants  is  simply  an  abuse. 

Confirmation,  or  the  laying  on  of  hands. — From 
the  beginning  the  laying  on  of  hands  by  the 
apostles  followed  baptism.  Thus  baptism  and  the 
laying  on  of  hands  taken  together  (and  sometimes 
called  by  the  one  name  of  baptism)  were  held  in 
the  early  church  to  constitute  the  ceremony  of 
initiation  into  the  Christian  society.  And  both 
together  were  solemnly  administered  only  at  the 
season  of  Easter  each  year.  But  the  bishop's 
presence  being  needed  for  the  second  part  of  the 
ceremony,  and  not  for  the  first,  the  desire  not  to 
defer  baptism  has  led  to  the  separation  in  the 
Western  Church  of  the  two  parts — of  confirma- 
tion from  baptism.  Nevertheless  they  should  still 
be  regarded  as  the  two  parts  of  the  one  ceremony, 
and  it  is  intended  that  both  should  be  publicly 
administered.  The  proper  matter  of  confirmation 
is  the  laying  on  of  hands  (to  which  in  early  days 
unction  with  oil  was  added,  but  it  is  not  neces- 
sary). The  proper  form  is  some  formula  of  bless- 
ing which  makes  mention  of  or  implies  the  gift 


48 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  inward  and  spiritual 
grace  is  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  strengthen 
the  person  confirmed,  and  to  equip  him  or  her  for 
membership.  °  For,  as  in  ordination,  the  laying  on 
of  hands  symbolizes  consecration  for  service,  and 
the  confirmed  person  should  be  taught  to  regard 
himself  as  a  fully-equipped  member  of  Christ,  that 
is  equipped  for  service  and  endowed  with  all  the 
duties  and  rights  of  membership,  and  as  sharing 
the  kingship  and  priesthood  of  the  whole  body 
of  Christ.  The  minister  of  confirmation  is  the 
bishop. '  The  subject  of  confirmation  is  any  bap- 
tized person.  In  England,  confirmation  being 
reserved  to  the  years  of  discretion,  that  is,  the 
time  when  the  child  can  understand  and  learn  and 
choose  for  himself,  and  baptism  being  generally 
administered  in  infancy,  the  person  to  be  con- 
firmed is  required  before  his  confirmation  to  re- 
new the  promises  of  his  baptism.  The  age  of  con- 
firmation has  been  the  subject  of  much  discussion, 
but  certainly  the  Prayer  Book  suggests  an  earlier 
age  than  has  of  recent  years  been  customary 
among  us. 

The  Holy  Communion. — The  greatest  of  all  the 
sacraments  of  the  church  is  the  Holy  Communion 
°  See  Acts  viii.  1",  18;  xix.  6. 

'  This  is  so  quite  exclusively  in  the  Anglican  Communion; 
in  the  Roman  Church  witli  very  slight  exception;  in  the 
Eastern  Church  only  indirectly  so,  in  that  the  bishop  blesses 
the  oil  which  is  the  instrument  of  confirmation. 


The  Church  and  the  Sacraments  49 


— the  greatest  because  it  sums  up  in  itself  such  an 
incomparable  richness  of  spiritual  meaning  and 
force;  because  of  the  glory  of  the  presence  and 
gift  there  vouchsafed ;  because  it  perpetuates  both 
Bethlehem  and  Calvary ;  because  it  evokes  all  the 
powers  and  faculties  of  the  w^orshipping  soul ;  be- 
cause it  is  commended  to  us  as  the  Lord's  own 
service — "This  do  in  remembrance  of  me."  As 
we  read  the  four  accounts  of  its  institution/  its 
elementary  meaning  becomes  plainly  intelligible. 
At  the  Last  Supper  with  His  disciples,  Jesus  took 
bread  and  blessed  it,  and  brake,  and  gave  it  to 
them  saying,  "Take,  eat,  this  is  my  body,"  and 
they  all  partook  of  the  one  bread.  And  He  took 
the  cup  and  blessed  it,  and  gave  it  to  them  saying, 
"Drink  ye  all  of  this,  for  this  is  my  blood  of  the 
new  covenant  which  is  poured  out  for  you  for  the 
remission  of  sins."  And  they  all  drank  of  the  one 
cup.  This  simple  ceremony  speaks  for  itself.  It 
means  sharing  together;  and  that  in  which  they 
are  to  share  together  is  He  Himself,  whose  body 
was  broken  and  whose  blood  was  shed  to  redeem 
them.  When  our  Lord  said,  "Do  this  in  remem- 
brance of  me,"  and  so  made  this  speaking  cere- 
mony the  central  sacrament  of  His  religion.  He 
must  have  meant  that  the  communion  (or  sharing 
together)  of  all  His  people  in  Him,  who  died  for 

«S.  Matt.  xxvi.  26  fl.;  S.  Mark  xiv.  22  ff.;  S.  Luke  xxii. 
19  ff.;  1  Cor.  xi.  23  ff. 


50  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


them,  was  to  be  its  governing  idea.  But  we  must 
examine  the  rite  a  little  more  closely  to  take  in  its 
meaning  in  different  aspects. 

1.  It  is  the  communication  of  Christ  to  each 
receiver.  The  priest,  the  officer  of  the  church, 
repeating  what  Christ  our  Lord  did  and  said 
when  He  instituted  these  holy  mysteries,  con- 
secrates the  bread  to  be  His  body  and  the  wine  to 
be  His  blood,  that  we  receiving  these  outward 
things  may  feed  on  Christ,  may  eat  His  flesh  and 
drink  His  blood.  We  cannot  analyze  the  mystery. 
Christ  is  made  present  there  in  His  body  and  in 
His  blood  under  the  humble  form  of  bread  and 
wine.  While  with  our  eyes  we  see  nothing  but 
the  outward  gifts,  by  faith  we  behold  heavenly 
things  made  present  amongst  us.  True,  in  the 
bread  broken  and  the  wine  outpoured,  separate 
the  one  from  the  other,  we  see  the  remembrance 
of  a  transaction  upon  this  earth,  the  sacrifice  of 
Calvary.  But  if  we  inquire  into  the  spiritual 
reality,  we  know  that  it  is  not  the  dying  Christ 
but  the  living  Christ — Christ  as  He  is  in  the 
heavenly  places — who  is  here  to  feed  us  with  His 
own  life  under  these  humble  forms.  "Christ 
herein  imparteth  Himself,  even  His  whole  entire 
person,  to  every  soul  that  receiveth  Him."  He 
who  was  our  example  outwardly  is  now  by  His 
Spirit  given  to  be  our  new  and  inward  life,  to 
dwell  continually  in  our  hearts,  and  to  renew  us 


The  Church  and  the  Sacraments 


51 


into  His  own  likeness,  strengthening  our  weak- 
ness, and  purifying  our  uncleanness.  And  in  the 
whole  process  of  the  sacrament  we  recognize  the 
characteristic  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  in  the 
consecration  brings  the  presence  of  Christ,  who 
Himself  communicates  Him  to  the  receiver. 

2.  But  it  is  not  merely  a  gift  to  the  individual 
receiver;  it  is  a  sharing  together  or  communion 
in  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ.  We  share  to- 
gether, not  merely  with  those  who  are  kneeling 
at  the  same  altar,  but  with  all  Christ's  people,  the 
living  and  the  dead,  the  great  company  which  no 
man  can  number,  in  one  communion  and  fellow- 
ship. Thus  the  body  of  Christ  renews  the  body 
which  is  His  church,  and  the  blood,  which  is  the 
life  of  Christ,  reinvigorates  its  common  life.  We 
need,  more  than  can  easily  be  said,  to  recall  to  the 
consciousness  of  each  communicant  that  his  every 
communion  lays  upon  him  the  privilege  and  the 
obligation  of  behaving  as  a  brother  to  every  other 
communicant,  "girding  himself  with  humility  to 
serve  them."  We  have  very  few  communicants 
amongst  us  compared  to  what  we  ought  to  have ; 
but  it  would  be  a  different  England  if  every  one 
of  them  behaved  as  if  he  really  believed  S.  Paul's 
words  ° — "The  cup  of  blessing  which  we  bless,  is 
it  not  a  communion  in  the  blood  of  Christ?  The 
bread  which  we  break,  is  it  not  a  communion  in 
» 1  Cor.  X.  16,  17. 


52  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


the  body  of  Christ?  Seeing  that  we,  who  are 
many,  are  one  bread,  one  body ;  for  we  all  partake 
of  the  one  bread." 

3.  Finally,  the  eucharist  (as  it  is  called)  is  the 
great  Christian  sacrifice.  According  to  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Bible  the  only  sacrifice  acceptable  to 
God  is  a  spiritual  sacrifice :  that  means  the  sacri- 
fice of  a  person,  and  of  words  or  things  only  as 
the  expressions  of  a  person.  In  the  holy  eucharist 
we  come  solemnly  before  God,  as  His  people  met 
for  the  commemoration  of  our  redemption,  to 
present  to  Him  the  sacrifice  of  our  persons  and 
our  goods,  our  alms  and  our  obligations,  our 
prayers  and  our  praises.  And  it  is  our  own 
symbolic  gifts  of  bread  and  wine  that  are  con- 
secrated to  become  the  body  and  the  blood  of 
our  Redeemer,  the  body  that  was  broken  and 
the  blood  that  was  shed  for  us.  Thus,  by  His 
presence  among  us,  all  our  imperfect  and  sin- 
stained  sacrifices  are  brought  into  union  with 
Christ's  one  full,  perfect,  and  sufficient  sacrifice, 
which  was  once  ofltered  for  us,  but  is  ever  pleaded 
in  the  heavenly  places.  Thus  in  every  eucharist 
the  one  perfect  sacrifice  is  pleaded  amongst  us 
afresh.  And,  when  we  have  fed  upon  Him,  we 
ourselves  are  joined  to  His  sacrifice;  and  in  Him 
we  offer  ourselves,  our  souls  and  bodies,  to  be  all 
together  a  reasonable,  holy,  and  lively  sacrifice 


The  Church  and  the  Sacraments  53 


unto  God  who  made  us.  This  is  indeed  the  end 
of  our  being. 

In  this  way  we  may  strive  imperfectly  to  sum- 
marize and  express,  what  still  remains  inexpres- 
sible, the  meaning  of  this  august  mystery.  Here 
is  the  whole  Christian  truth  in  its  every  aspect. 
Here  is  the  whole  Blessed  Trinity  at  work:  here 
is  the  incarnation  and  the  atonement  perpetuated 
and  applied;  here  is  union  with  the  heavenly 
Christ,  and  the  eager  expectation  of  His  second 
coming — "Ye  do  show  the  Lord's  death  till  He 
come";  here  is  the  stimulus  alike  to  divine  wor- 
ship and  to  human  brotherhood  ;  here  is  the  satis- 
faction of  the  innermost  longing  of  the  heart  of 
man  for  union  with  God. 

It  is  a  terrible  mistake  to  have  allowed  the 
Lord's  service  to  become  anything  else  than  the 
central  service  of  the  morning  of  the  Lord's  Day. 
As  things  are  the  vast  majority  of  the  members  of 
the  church  never  receive  the  blessed  sacrament: 
millions  of  the  baptized  never  join  in  the  only 
divinely-appointed  act  of  Christian  worship — the 
most  easily  intelligible,  because  the  most  dra- 
matic, of  all  services — and  indeed  are  barely 
conscious  of  what  is  there  enacted. 

I  know  what  is  the  obstacle  to  restoring  the 
Lord's  service  to  its  proper  place.  It  is  the 
strength  of  the  tradition  which  puts  the  chief 
service  at  eleven  o'clock.    Now  that  we  have 


54 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


become  more  widely  desirous  to  obey  the  rule  of 
the  ancient  church,  that  the  body  of  Christ  should 
be  the  first  food  that  passes  our  lips,  the  eucharist 
celebrated  with  music  and  a  sermon  at  eleven 
o'clock  as  the  chief  service  of  the  Sunday  is  apt 
to  become  a  celebration  with  very  few  communi- 
cants, or  none  at  all  except  the  priest.  And,  in 
spite  of  the  example  of  the  Roman  and  Eastern 
churches,  in  their  later  course,  a  great  many  of 
us,  even  of  those  who  have  no  prejudice  whatever 
against  the  attendance  at  the  service  of  the  altar 
of  those  who  are  not  communicating,  feel  that  the 
chief  service  should  be  the  corporate  communion, 
the  service  at  which  the  most  communicate,  as  it 
was  in  the  catholic  church  everywhere  for  well- 
nigh  the  first  thousand  years  of  its  life.  I  am  con- 
vinced that  we  cannot  habitually  separate  the 
offering  of  the  sacrifice  from  the  act  of  com- 
munion without  grave  loss.  I  cannot  help  look- 
ing longingly,  and  not  without  hope,  for  a  state 
of  things  when  the  chief  service  of  the  Sunday 
shall  be  at  an  hour  when  all  can  communicate  who 
are  qualified  and  prepared. 

Before  we  leave  this  great  theme  it  ought  to 
be  said  that  the  matter  of  this  holy  sacrament  is 
bread,  leavened  or  unleavened,  and  wine  or  wine 
mingled  with  a  little  water;  and  the  form  the  act 
and  words  of  consecration;  and  the  minister  a 
priest ;  and  the  subjects  (or  proper  recipients)  all 


The  Church  and  the  Sacraments 


55 


baptized  and  confirmed  persons  (or  such  as  at 
least  are  ready  and  willing  to  be  confirmed)  who 
have  not  subsequently  been  put  out  of  com- 
munion, but  can  approach  the  holy  sacrament  in 
faith  and  repentance. 

Reconciliation  of  Penitents,  or  Penance. — Sin  is 
not  only  a  private  matter  between  the  soul  and 
God;  it  is  a  weakening  of  the  whole  life  of  the 
church — however  secret  it  may  be.  The  church 
is  wronged  by  any  and  every  sin.  It  is  this  feel- 
ing in  part,  I  suppose,  which  causes  S.  James  to 
exhort  Christians  thus — "Confess  your  sins  one  to 
another,  and  pray  one  for  another,  that  ye  may  be 
healed."  "  It  is  also  certain  that  Christians  from 
the  beginning  believed  that  our  Lord  had  left  to 
His  church  the  power  to  absolve  or  retain  sins. 
S.  John  records  His  solemn  grant  of  this  power  to 
the  eleven  on  the  day  on  which  He  rose  from  the 
dead.  "Receive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost :  whose  soever 
sins  ye  forgive,  they  are  forgiven  unto  them ;  and 
whose  soever  sins  ye  retain,  they  are  retained."  " 
Whatever  other  application  these  words  may 
have,  at  least  one  principal  application  was  to 
members  of  the  church  who  fell  into  scandalous 
sin.  Such  persons  were  put  out  of  communion 
and,  when  they  had  shown  marks  of  true  peni- 
tence, or  "done  penance,"  were  readmitted  to  com- 
munion in  some  formal  way,  as  by  prayer  and  the 
"  S.  Jas.  V.  16.  "  S.  John  xx.  22,  23. 


56  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


laying  on  of  hands  of  the  bishop.  This  was  done, 
as  S.  Paul  says,"  "in  the  person  of  Christ,"  the 
action  of  the  church  being  regarded  as  the  action 
of  Christ  Himself  in  the  church.  That  is  the 
essence  of  the  church  doctrine  of  "penance" — 
the  duty  of  the  church  to  judge  its  members, 
and  the  authority  of  the  church  to  retain  or 
forgive  their  sins.  And  this  is  a  properly  sacra- 
mental action,  because  the  formal  action  of  the 
church  in  absolving  or  reconciling  penitents  car- 
ried with  it  the  action  of  Christ.  This  system  of 
penance  was  applied  in  the  first  instance,  as  I 
have  said,  to  sins  which  caused  scandal,  to  open 
sins.  In  the  Church  of  England  at  the  Reforma- 
tion it  was  desired  to  restore,  as  far  as  possible, 
this  system  of  public  penance ;  and  one  of  the 
Thirty-Nine  Articles  (the  thirty-third)  speaks  of 
such  notorious  sinners  as  being  excommunicated 
and  then  "openly  reconciled  by  penance."  In  our 
old  parish  books  there  are  frequent  notices  of 
such  public  penances  down  into  the  eighteenth 
century. 

But  besides  this,  from  the  beginnings  of  the 
church  its  members  are  found  voluntarily  con- 
fessing their  secret  sins — at  first  in  the  public 
congregation,  later  to  the  bishop  or  priest  ap- 
pointed to  receive  such  confessions ;  and  then  do- 
ing penance  and  being  absolved,  at  first  publicly 
"  2  Cor.  ii.  10. 


The  Church  and  the  Sacraments 


57 


and  then  privately.  In  the  Middle  Ages  such 
private  or  auricular  confession  of  all  grave  or 
mortal  sins  was  made  obligatory,  which  it  had 
not  been  in  earlier  times.  At  the  Reformation 
all  such  obligation  was  removed,  and  the  matter 
now  stands  with  us  thus.  The  authority  of  the 
priesthood  to  absolve  is  strongly  maintained.  The 
words  of  the  ordination  of  a  priest  among  us  run 
thus :  "Receive  the  Holy  Ghost  for  the  office  and 
work  of  a  priest  in  the  church  of  God  here  com- 
mitted unto  thee  by  the  imposition  of  our  (the 
bishop's)  hands:  whose  sins  thou  dost  forgive 
they  are  forgiven,  and  whose  sins  thou  dost 
retain  they  are  retained,"  etc.  And  the  following 
form  of  absolution  is  (in  the  Order  for  the  Visita- 
tion of  the  Sick)  given  to  the  priest  to  use :  "Our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  hath  left  power  to  His 
church  to  absolve  all  sinners  who  truly  repent 
and  believe  in  Him,  of  His  great  mercy  forgive 
thee  thine  offences;  and  by  His  authority  com- 
mitted to  me,  I  absolve  thee  from  all  thy  sins,  in 
the  name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of 
the  Holy  Ghost."  As  in  the  ancient  church,  it  is 
strongly  maintained  in  our  Prayer  Book,  that  all 
worthy  penitence,  without  any  sacramental  con- 
fession or  absolution,  is  met  by  the  fullest  for- 
giveness of  God.  But  any  one  who  cannot  quiet 
his  own  conscience,  but  requires  further  comfort 
or  advice,  is  exhorted  to  come  to  the  parish  priest, 


58 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


"or  to  some  other  discreet  and  learned  minister 
of  God's  word,  and  open  his  grief;  that  by  the 
ministry  of  God's  holy  word  he  may  receive  the 
benefit  of  absolution,  together  with  ghostly  coun- 
sel and  advice,  to  the  quieting  of  his  conscience 
and  avoiding  of  all  scruple  and  doubtfulness." 
Besides  this,  on  their  sick-beds  people  are  to  be 
"moved"  to  confess  their  sins  to  the  priest,  if  they 
feel  their  conscience  "troubled  with  any  weighty 
matter." 

Circumstances  have  changed  greatly  since  the 
Reformation.  Public  penance  has  become  more 
and  more  difficult  to  administer.  The  sense  of 
sin  has  fallen  in  most  men  to  a  very  low  level. 
It  is  necessary  for  a  living  church  to  give  direc- 
tions suited  to  present-day  needs.  All  that  I  am 
at  present  authorized  by  the  church  to  say  is  that 
(where  public  notorious  sin  is  not  in  question) 
no  priest  is  justified  in  requiring  any  one  to  make 
his  confession ;  and  no  priest  is  justified  in  refus- 
ing the  ministry  of  confession  and  absolution  to 
any  penitent  who  desires  it.  There  has  been  of 
late  years  an  immense  increase  in  the  number  of 
confessions  made;  but  if  the  gravity  of  sin  was 
more  widely  felt,  I  believe  that  multitudes  more 
would  desire  to  submit  themselves  to  the  judg- 
ment of  the  church  through  its  ministers,  seeing 
that  the  authority  to  judge  and  to  absolve  has 
been  so  explicitly  and  solemnly  given  it  by  Christ. 


The  Church  and  the  Sacraments  59 


Of  course,  the  ministers  of  the  church  may  ex- 
ercise judgment  wrongly  just  as  the  preacher  may 
misrepresent  the  divine  message.  Over  all  their 
mistaken  judgments  we  must  believe  in  the  recti- 
fying action  of  God.  Still  the  fact  remains  that  to 
bind  us  to  His  church  Christ  deliberately  com- 
mitted this  tremendous  authority  to  fallible  men. 

The  outward  sign  of  absolution  is  some  formula 
or  prayer  of  absolution  spoken  after  the  confes- 
sion of  the  penitent  has  been  made,  and  any  nec- 
essary requirements,  necessary  as  evidence  of  real 
repentance,  have  been  accepted:  the  inward  and 
spiritual  grace  is  divine  absolution  and  the  re- 
moval of  the  barriers  to  Communion  :  the  minister 
is  a  priest :  and  the  subject  is  any  baptized  Chris- 
tian who  has  sinned  and  repented. 

Holy  Matrimony. — The  religion  of  Christ  cen- 
tres in  the  home  as  much  as  in  the  church.  And 
the  sacredness  of  the  home  is  based  upon  holy 
matrimony — the  lifelong  union  of  man  and 
woman.  By  civil  law  marriage  is  required  to  be 
before  an  appointed  officer,  minister  of  religion 
or  civil  officer ;  and  our  ecclesiastical  law  requires 
the  ministration  of  the  priest.  But  its  essence 
lies  in  the  deliberate  contract  of  the  man  and 
woman  with  one  another.  It  is  sacramental  only 
because  ratified  and  rendered  indissoluble  by  God 
— "Those  whom  God  hath  joined  together  let  no 
man  put  asunder."    By  our  church  law  in  Eng- 


60 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


land  a  marriage,  duly  made  and  consummated,  is 
strictly  indissoluble  except  by  death ;  and,  while 
it  admits  of  separation  a  mensa  et  thoro,  allows  of 
no  such  divorce  as  would  free  either  party,  during 
the  lifetime  of  the  other,  to  marry  again.  Of  this 
there  can  be  no  question.  It  is  the  opinion  of  the 
best  scholars  that  this  indissolubility  represents 
the  intention  of  Christ ;  so  the  church  in  general 
has  interpreted  it ;  so  the  present  writer  believes. 
But  there  exists,  apparently,  in  S.  Matthew's  Gos- 
pel the  permission  for  the  husband  of  an  adulter- 
ous wife  to  divorce  his  wife  and  marry  again. 

This  we  must  believe  to  be  a  declension  from 
the  standard  of  our  Lord.  But  we  cannot  deny 
that  it  is  within  the  competence  of  any  national 
church  to  admit  a  relaxation  so  authorized.  Those 
who  desire  such  relaxation  of  our  law  must  move 
for  its  formal  adoption.  Meanwhile  our  church 
law  admits  no  exception.  It  upholds  the  strict 
standard  of  Christ,  and  the  standard  of  the  church 
at  its  best.  And  those  who  break  in  this  impor- 
tant matter  the  law  of  the  society  to  which  they 
belong  must  expect  to  forfeit  the  privileges  of 
communion.  This  law  of  indissoluble  marriage 
has  proved,  as  the  first  disciples  anticipated,  a 
very  hard  standard  to  maintain.  All  sorts  of 
evasions  have  been  adopted,  and  it  is  possible 
that  nowadays  it  could  not  be  strictly  main- 
tained as  the  law  of  civil  society.    But  I  believe 


The  Church  and  the  Sacraments  61 


that  the  church  is  doing  the  will  of  Christ  in 
maintaining  the  law  of  indissoluble  marriage  as 
the  requirement  of  its  communion. 

One  other  matter  must  also  be  mentioned.  The 
church  has  so  believed  in  the  union  of  husband 
and  wife  as  to  treat  the  relatives  of  either  party 
as  the  relatives  of  the  other — to  treat  "affinity" 
as  equivalent  to  "consanguinity."  More  than 
that,  the  church  has  believed  this  principle  to  be 
divine.  At  the  Reformation  the  legitimacy  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  depended  on  the  doctrine  that 
no  ecclesiastical  authority  could  dispense  from  it. 
Our  modern  state  has  broken  through  this  prin- 
ciple at  one  point  by  sanctioning  marriage  with  a 
deceased  wife's  sister;  but  our  part  of  the  church 
retains  the  old  principle,  and  refuses  sanction." 

Unction  of  the  Sick. — There  ought  to  be  no 
question  that  our  Lord  would  have  us  regard 
sickness  and  disease  as  (at  least  for  the  most 
part)  an  invasion  of  the  evil  one  which  we  ought 
to  resist  and  repel.  And  as  a  part  of  sanitary 
science,  side  by  side  with  the  ministry  of  the 
physician,  we  ought  to  recognize  spiritual  influ- 
ences for  the  healing  of  the  body.  There  cer- 
tainly is  such  a  thing  as  faith-healing.  And  of 
this  ministry  S.  James  speaks  thus :  "Is  any 
among  you  sick?  let  him  call  for  the  elders  of 

"  The  terminology  of  matter  and  form,  etc.,  do  not  admit 
of  any  satisfactory  application  in  the  case  of  matrimony. 


62 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


the  church ;  and  let  them  pray  over  him,  anoint- 
ing him  with  oil  in  the  name  of  the  Lord.  And 
the  prayer  of  faith  shall  save  him  that  is  sick. 
And  if  he  have  committed  sins,  it  shall  be  for- 
given him."  "  In  accordance  with  this  passage, 
the  church  has  generally  administered  Unction  of 
the  Sick:  and  though,  unfortunately  as  some  of 
us  think,  its  misuse  led  to  its  abandonment  as  an 
authorized  and  sacramental  ordinance  at  the  Ref- 
ormation, it  is  being  restored  among  us,  with  the 
sanction  of  many  individual  bishops,  who  are 
willing  to  bless  the  oil  for  this  purpose,  when 
any  sick  person  claims  what  S.  James  so  plainly 
counsels.  Let  us  indeed  pray  that  its  restoration 
may  be  accompanied  by  the  restoration  all  along 
the  line  of  the  right  attitude  of  the  church  toward 
disease,  as  being  not  only  an  infliction  to  be 
patiently  borne,  but  an  aggression  of  evil  to  be 
resisted  both  by  science  and  by  faith,  and  expelled 
both  from  the  society  and  the  individual,  as  far 
as  possible.  The  wise  know  well  how  far  that 
expulsion  might  go. 

Holy  Orders. — Bishops  and  priests,  as  ministers 
of  Christ,  have  been  already  mentioned  repeatedly. 
Christ  Himself  instituted  a  ministrj^  in  the  per- 
sons of  His  apostles,  intended  plainly  to  endure 
to  the  end ; "  and  the  apostolate  stands  at  the 

"  S.  Jas.  V.  14. 

"  S.  Matt,  xxviii.  20;  S.  Luke  xii.  41  flF. 


The  Church  and  the  Sacraments  63 


beginning  of  the  Acts  with  an  unquestioned  au- 
thority. Thus  the  church  did  not  appoint  the 
ministry ;  it  was  there  to  start  with,  as  appointed 
by  Christ.  There  were  the  Twelve  and  men  of 
like  authority,  such  as  Barnabas  and  Saul,  who 
exercised  a  general  ministry  and  a  general  author- 
ity; and  when  local  churches  arose,  "presbyters" 
(also  called  "bishops")  were  ordained  by  the 
apostles  in  each  church,  with  deacons  and,  per- 
haps, deaconesses.  In  the  New  Testament  there 
are  also  other  figures,  such  as  prophets  and  evan- 
gelists and  teachers,  whose  exact  position  is  not 
easy  to  define.  And  in  the  earliest  period  when 
the  church  was  undoubtedly  expecting  the  advent 
of  Christ  immediately,  there  was  naturally  no 
thought  for  the  future.  But  even  before  the  end 
of  the  apostolic  age,  when  the  church  felt  com- 
pelled to  contemplate  a  longer  future,  it  threw 
itself  on  the  principle  of  succession — that  is,  the 
principle  that  the  ministry  as  instituted  by  Christ 
was  intended  to  be  perpetual  down  the  ages;  so 
that  every  minister,  who  could  rightly  claim  to 
be  such,  in  any  grade  of  office,  must  have  received 
ordination  from  those  in  the  church  before  him 
who  had  authority  to  ordain  and  who  had  in  their 
turn  received  it  step  by  step  from  the  apostles. 
The  history  of  the  way  in  which  the  ministry  of 
the  later  church  emerged  out  of  the  apostolic 
ministry  cannot  be  exactly  traced.   But  we  must 


64 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


insist  that  in  this,  as  in  all  other  matters  not 
precisely  ordered  by  Christ,  the  church  has  au- 
thority to  bind  and  loose ;  and  with  an  extraor- 
dinary unanimity  of  judgment  —  a  unanimity 
which  lasted  down  to  the  sixteenth  century — it 
was  held  for  certain  that  the  three  chief  orders 
of  the  ministry  were  bishops,  presbyters,  and  dea- 
cons :  that  of  these  the  bishops  held  in  succession 
from  the  apostles  the  full  authority  and  ministry 
of  the  word  and  sacraments,  with  sole  authority 
to  ordain  the  other  ministers ;  that  priests  held  a 
minor  priestly  authority,  especially  authority  to 
celebrate  the  holy  eucharist  and  to  absolve  and 
to  preach ;  and  that  the  deacons  held  a  ministry 
of  assistance. 

The  democratic  principle  in  the  appointment  to 
the  ministry  was  very  fully  recognized  in  early 
times:  the  people,  it  was  commonly  agreed, 
should  appoint  the  persons  whom  the  bishops 
should  ordain,  and  should  choose  the  bishops 
themselves.  But  the  act  of  ordination — the  lay- 
ing on  of  hands  with  accompanying  prayer  or 
formula — was  regarded  as  sacramental,  an  out- 
ward and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  and  spiritual 
grace  thereby  given.  So  it  was  regarded  from 
the  beginning,  as  S.  Paul  had  spoken  to  S.Timo- 
thy of  "the  gift  that  was  in  him  by  the  laying 
on  of  his  (S.  Paul's)  hands." 

It  will  be  plain  to  any  one  that  the  principle  of 


The  Church  and  the  Sacraments  65 


the  succession  in  the  ministry  is  even  a  neces- 
sary element  in  the  idea  of  a  visible  church.  If 
there  is  one  church,  one  visible  society,  to  vv^hich 
all  who  are  Christ's  must  needs  belong,  it  must  be 
made  manifest  where  that  church  is  to  be  found. 

Continuity  of  doctrine  is  a  great  thing ;  but  it 
is  not  enough.  There  must  also  be  continuity  of 
persons.  Otherwise  any  group  of  dissatisfied  in- 
dividuals might  go  off  by  themselves  and  still 
say  "We  are  the  church."  The  obligation  to  con- 
tinue in  communion  with  the  bishop  provided 
the  necessary  bond.  The  succession  of  bishops 
guaranteed  the  continuity  of  the  church,  and  the 
communion  of  bishops  with  one  another  was  in- 
tended to  guarantee  the  unbroken  fellowship  of 
the  church.   

What  has  been  done  in  this  chapter  is  to  outline 
the  doctrine  of  the  one  holy  catholic  church,  with 
its  ministry  and  sacraments,  as  it  was  believed 
and  taught  with  astonishing  unanimity  for  more 
than  fifteen  hundred  years  in  Christendom,  and  as 
it  is  still  maintained  in  the  Church  of  England. 
That  it  is  maintained  under  difficulties  and  in  the 
face  of  objections  we  know;  and  some  of  these 
difficulties  and  objections,  as  urged  both  from  the 
Roman  Catholic  and  from  the  Protestant  side,  I 
hope  briefly  to  consider  in  a  later  chapter. 

Meanwhile,  what  I  have  tried  to  do  is  to  give 


66 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


Churchmen  a  sense  of  the  way  in  which  the  doc- 
trines of  the  visible  church  and  of  the  sacraments 
and  of  the  ministry  hold  together  as  parts  of  one 
whole,  and  how  that  whole  is  rooted  in  the  inten- 
tion of  Christ  and  in  the  very  idea  of  the  incar- 
nation. 


CHAPTER  V 


The  Last  Things  and  the  Communion  of  Saints 
THE  END  OF  THE  WORLD 

THE  church  looks  forward  to  an  "end  of  the 
world" — that  is,  an  end  of  the  present  famil- 
iar order  of  things,  which  is  to  usher  in  the  future 
state,  "the  world  to  come" — that  is,  the  kingdom 
or  reign  of  God,  when  all  rebellion  and  evil  has 
been  utterly  overcome  and  purged  away,  and  God 
shall  be  all  in  all.  There  are  passages  in  the  New 
Testament  in  which  the  visible  church  is  identi- 
fied with  the  kingdom,  and  other  passages  in 
which  they  are  distinguished.  Thus,  while  we 
belong  to  the  church,  we  are  taught  to  work  and 
pray  that  God's  kingdom  may  come,  implying 
that  it  is  not  here  at  present.  Perhaps  on  the 
whole  we  may  say  that  the  kingdom  is  some- 
thing larger  than  the  visible  church,  but  that 
both  are  of  one  piece :  that  the  church  represents 
the  kingdom  in  the  present  world  and  by  its 
prayers  and  activities  prepares  the  way  for  its 
future  coming.    Thus  the  church  is  to  expect 


68 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


with  the  most  profound  desire  the  "day  of  God," 
when  God  is  to  come  into  His  own  in  the  whole 
universe  of  things,  and  the  undisputed  and  uni- 
versal reign  of  His  Christ  is  to  begin. 

As  I  have  already  said,  the  end  of  the  world, 
like  the  beginning  of  the  world,  is  presented  to 
us  in  forms  and  images  which  are  symbolical. 
But  they  are  symbolical  of  what  is  to  be  actually 
true.  In  fact,  it  follows  inevitably  from  any  real 
belief  in  God  as  the  one  only  creator  and  sustainer 
of  the  world,  that  one  day  He  must  vindicate 
Himself  in  His  whole  creation.  Thus  whenever 
the  prophets  of  God  in  the  Old  Testament  or  the 
New  see  any  kingdom  or  empire  or  institution  or 
individual  flouting  God  in  arrogance  and  pride, 
they  anticipate  with  assurance  for  such  an  insti- 
tution or  person,  if  not  repentance,  then  over- 
throw. That  is  God's  day.  And  the  prophets 
treat  each  particular  overthrow  of  an  insolent 
creature  of  God,  which  has  used  against  God  the 
powers  which  come  from  Him,  as  a  specimen  of 
the  great  final  day  of  the  Lord  in  the  whole  uni- 
verse ;  and  they  commonly  describe  it  in  terms 
of  the  final  universal  convulsion.  We  must  recog- 
nize that  the  prophets  had  an  inspired  and  assured 
insight  into  the  principles  of  God's  government 
of  the  world,  and  accordingly  they  foresee  what 
must  happen  in  a  particular  case — for  instance, 
that  Babylon  or  apostate  Jerusalem  or  persecut- 


The  Last  Things 


69 


ing  Rome  must  be  overthrown.  Thus  they  utter 
real  predictions,  which  have  been  fulfilled.  But 
they  have  no  general  knowledge  of  future  his- 
tory given  to  them.  In  their  anticipations  they 
constantly  foreshorten  the  future  and  give  free- 
dom to  their  imagination  in  describing  the  details. 
This  is  characteristic  of  Biblical  "apocalypses" 
or  unveilings  of  the  future.  There  is  an  element 
of  true  and  definite  prediction  and  also  a  large 
element  of  symbolical  scenery.  It  is  only  in  a 
very  restricted  sense  that  prophecy  can  be  de- 
scribed as  "history  written  beforehand."  And 
those,  for  instance,  who  have  tried  to  construct 
history  beforehand  out  of  the  materials  of  S. 
John's  "Revelation"  have  proved  in  almost  all 
instances  remarkably  wrong. 

The  really  important  point  is  that  the  prophets 
were  inspired  to  assure  the  faithful  people  of  God 
that  nothing  should  prevail  against  God  or  His 
Christ,  and  that,  in  spite  of  all  seeming  failures, 
the  day  of  the  Lord  and  of  His  Christ  was  sure. 
Our  Lord  Himself  uses  the  apocalyptic  method. 
He  has  a  definite  prediction  to  make — that  is,  the 
destruction  of  apostate  Jerusalem.  This  He  pre- 
dicts as  about  to  occur  in  the  present  generation, 
and  His  prediction  was  fulfilled.  It  occurred  in 
what  we  call  the  ordinary  course  of  history,  and 
there  does  not  appear  to  be  anything  specially 
miraculous  about  it.    But,  after  the  manner  of 


70 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


ancient  prophets,  our  Lord  treats  this  overthrow 
as  God's  act  of  judgment  on  the  city  which  had 
rejected  not  only  the  servants  of  God,  but  the 
Son  Himself ;  and  He  throws  this  overthrow  of 
the  apostate  city  and  temple  upon  the  back- 
ground of  the  end  of  the  world  and  His  own  com- 
ing in  glory,  as  the  triumphant  Christ,  to  judge 
the  quick  and  the  dead.  His  language  is  symbol- 
ical, like  that  of  the  prophets ;  and,  like  theirs, 
His  vision  of  the  end  is  quite  independent  of  time. 
He  told  His  disciples  before  His  passion  that  even 
He  Himself  did  not  know  "the  day  or  hour";  and, 
after  His  resurrection.  He  told  them  that  the 
times  and  the  seasons  were  reserved  in  the 
Father's  own  power.  Moreover,  in  His  own  dis- 
courses as  recorded  in  the  Gospels,  we  find  our 
Lord  frequently  using  language  which  suggests 
gradual  development  in  the  future,  and  perplexing 
delays,  as  well  as  language  which  anticipates  the 
great  day  of  final  divine  intervention  as  if  it  were 
immediately  to  be  expected. 

That  the  first  Christians  did  in  fact  expect  "the 
end"  in  their  own  lifetime  does  not  admit  of  doubt. 
And  the  belief  that  it  must  soon  come  has  char- 
acterized most  religious  revivals.  To  converted 
souls  it  has  seemed  inconceivable  that  God  should 
any  longer  tolerate  the  insolence  of  men.  We 
may  well  believe  that  it  would  have  come  much 
more  speedily  than  in  fact  it  has,  if  the  church 


The  Last  Things 


71 


had  been  faithful  in  maintaining  its  witness  and 
extending  it  into  the  whole  world,  instead  of  fall- 
ing back  into  a  fatal  acquiescence  in  things  as 
they  are.  But  our  Lord  had  prepared  the  minds 
of  His  disciples  to  see  the  assurance  of  "the  end" 
in  His  resurrection,  and  its  actual  realization  (in 
a  sense)  in  His  ascension  and  the  mission  of  the 
Spirit  and  the  establishment  of  the  church ;  so 
that  when  in  actual  experience  the  fall  of  Jeru- 
salem came  and  "the  end  was  not  yet,"  the  mind 
of  the  church  was  not  perplexed.  Their  attention 
was  turned  to  the  next  adversary — the  insolent, 
persecuting  empire  of  Rome;  and,  taught  of 
John,  the  seer  of  "the  Apocalypse,"  they  waited 
for  the  judgment  of  God  upon  Rome.  By  the 
time  of  the  fall  of  Rome,  however,  the  church  had 
got  too  much  at  home  in  the  world  to  be  as 
zealous  for  the  end  as  it  had  been  in  its  bright 
beginnings. 

To-day  there  are  not  many  of  us,  I  fear,  who 
really  and  passionately  desire  the  end  of  the 
world  and  the  consummation  of  the  kingdom. 
But  it  remains  true  always  and  everywhere  that 
every  institution  which  ignores  or  resists  God — 
every  civilization  which  seeks  to  build  itself  up 
on  a  merely  secular  basis  or  on  a  basis  of  self- 
interest,  individual  or  corporate — on  pleasure,  or 
avarice,  or  pride — must  be  overthrown.  It  re- 
mains true  that  we  are  led,  both  by  revelation  and 


72 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


experience,  to  expect  the  vindication  of  God  not 
merely  by  a  gradual  development  of  the  world 
into  perfection,  but  by  a  cataclysm  or  series  of 
cataclysms  in  v^^hich  the  forces  of  evil  are  over- 
thrown and  God  manifestly  triumphs  over  them. 
On  a  universal  and  final  scale  this  is  to  be  the  end 
of  the  world.  It  may  well  be  that  the  final  mani- 
festation of  divine  victory  will  follow  upon  a  state 
of  things  in  which  God  has  seemed  to  be  utterly 
defeated  all  the  world  over,  just  as  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Christ  followed  upon  the  seeming  total 
failure  of  the  cross.  But  the  wise  Christian  is 
content  to  wait  and  see,  while  he  holds  the  confi- 
dent faith  that  Christ  reigns,  supreme  and 
unquestionable,  and  will  one  day  come  into  His 
own  in  the  whole  scene  of  creation. 

HEAVEN 

On  the  whole,  the  anticipations  of  the  New 
Testament  do  not  lead  us  to  transfer  the  scene  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  from  earth  to  some  other 
sphere  called  heaven.  Rather  it  describes  a  "re- 
turn" of  Christ  from  heaven  to  earth,  and  (so  to 
speak)  a  fusion  of  heaven  with  earth,  or  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  right- 
eousness, the  centre  of  the  whole  new  world  being 
the  New  Jerusalem,  the  perfected  fellowship  of 
humanity,  the  city  of  God.    I  am  sure  that  we 


The  Last  Things 


73 


make  a  mistake  if  we  attempt  to  translate  the 
symbols  of  the  end  into  literal  anticipations  of 
history.  But  the  matter  of  greatest  importance 
is  that  it  is  this  creation  of  God,  and  the  humanity 
which  we  now  know,  that,  purged  and  trans- 
formed, are  to  supply  the  material  of  the  kingdom 
of  God.  Whatever  the  catastrophe  through 
which  the  world  must  pass,  whatever  the  purg- 
ing process  of  judgment,  whatever  the  trans- 
formation of  matter,  it  is  this  world  that  is  to 
become  the  kingdom  of  God.  Thus  no  labour  will 
ever  really  be  lost  which  we  spend  here  upon  the 
preparation  for  the  kingdom.  All  faithful  work 
done  in  Christ's  name,  however  much  it  seem  to 
fail,  is  really  laid  up  in  God's  treasury,  and  its 
fruits  will  at  last  appear.  It  will  become  a  stone 
in  the  New  Jerusalem.  "Blessed  are  the  dead 
which  die  in  the  Lord  from  henceforth :  yea,  saith 
the  Spirit,  that  they  may  rest  from  their  labours ; 
for  their  works  follow  with  them."  ' 

THE  RESURRECTION  OF  THE  DEAD 

All  this  belief  in  the  kingdom  to  come  has 
involved  a  belief  in  a  life  beyond  death.  It 
became  plain  with  the  flash  of  inspiration  to  the 
soul  of  Isaiah  that  the  dead  Israelites,  who  had 
died  without  seeing  the  great  deliverance,  must 
be  raised  again  to  share  in  it.  "Thy  dead  shall 
•  Rev.  xiv.  13. 


74 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


live ;  my  dead  bodies  shall  arise.  Awake  and  sing, 
ye  that  dwell  in  the  dust :  for  the  earth  shall  cast 
forth  the  dead."  '  It  is  most  interesting  to  see 
how  the  ancient  people  of  Israel  came  to  that 
belief  in  a  future  life  which  before  our  Lord's 
time  we  find  prevailing  amongst  them,  with  the 
exception  of  the  small  and  aristocratic  section  of 
the  Sadducees.  It  was  not  through  dealings  with 
the  dead.  They  originally  shared  with  all  their 
neighbours  a  background  of  belief  in  the  pit  of 
"sheol,"  where  the  spirits  of  the  dead — pale 
shadows  of  their  former  selves — subsist  drearily 
somewhere  underground.  But  they  were  sternly 
debarred  from  any  attempt  to  have  intercourse 
with  the  dead.  Their  religion  was  to  be  a  religion 
of  the  active,  sunlit  world ;  they  were  to  see  God's 
reign  here  and  now.  And  they  did  see  it ;  but 
only  partly.  It  dawned  upon  their  collective 
mind,  and  was  confirmed  to  them  by  here  a 
prophet  and  there  a  psalmist,  (1)  that  if  there  be 
a  God,  almighty  and  righteous,  there  must  be 
some  larger  sphere  than  that  of  this  world — this 
"wild  and  irregular  scene" — for  God  to  realize 
and  reveal  Himself.  This  world  cannot  be  the 
end;  (2)  that  the  intimate  spiritual  relationship 
into  which  God  admits  His  saints — Abraham  and 
Isaac  and  Jacob,  Moses  and  Samuel  and  David — 


'Isa.  xxvi.  19. 


The  Last  Things 


75 


cannot  end  with  death.  This  intimacy  must  be 
continued  in  the  beyond.  By  constant  dwelling 
on  these  two  lines  of  thought  and  expectation  the 
Jews  came  to  believe  not  merely  in  "the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul,"  but  in  "the  resurrection  of  the 
dead."  Among  the  Greeks  there  was  always  the 
feeling  that  the  body  was  something  degrading — 
the  prison-house  of  the  soul  and  its  pollution. 
They  were  content  to  expect  a  survival  of  souls 
only.  But  by  a  much  healthier  instinct,  anticipat- 
ing the  future  of  a  still  remote  science,  the  Jews 
felt  that  the  body  is  an  essential  part  of  the  man. 
They  were  healthily  unashamed  of  the  body  and 
the  bodily  functions.  Thus,  if  they  thought  of  a 
future  life,  they  wanted  a  complete  life:  they 
wanted  a  better  body  perhaps  than  this  present 
flesh,  but  certainly  a  body — and  for  each  man  his 
own  body  to  match  the  more  perfect  world  in 
which  he  should  find  himself.  And  it  was  this 
anticipation,  itself  wrought  into  their  minds  by 
divine  inspiration,  which  was  confirmed  in  our 
Lord's  teaching,  and  which  received  its  first  reali- 
zation in  experience  in  His  resurrection  from  the 
dead. 

Any  one  who  reads  the  records  of  the  forty  days 
after  our  Lord's  resurrection  will  see  that  He  is 
represented  as  having  been  raised  to  life  in  His 
body,  but  in  that  body  transformed  into  a  quite 
new  state.    He  no  longer  lives  here  or  there,  in 


76 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


Jerusalem  or  Galilee,  so  that  the  disciples  could 
find  Him  by  calling  there.  He  has  not  to  pass  by 
walking  from  one  scene  to  another.  Closed  doors 
are  no  obstacle  to  Him.  He  seems  to  be  existing 
on  some  higher  plane  from  which  He  manifests 
Himself,  in  different  forms  and  guises,  according 
to  His  spiritual  purpose.  He  can  walk  with  the 
two  disciples  to  Emmaus,  and  even  eat  with  the 
eleven  in  Jerusalem.  But  we  are  not  to  suppose 
that  He  needs  food  or  depends  upon  locomotion. 
It  is  suggested  in  the  narratives  that  He  had,  on 
the  morning  of  the  resurrection,  left  the  tomb  be- 
fore it  was  opened,  and  that  the  body  had  passed 
out  of  the  grave-clothes,  leaving  them  to  collapse 
in  their  places.  All  this  corresponds  very  well 
with  S.  Paul's  teaching  of  a  spiritual  body — a 
body  which  is  no  longer  the  "flesh  and  blood"  of 
our  present  experience,  but  has  been  transmuted 
into  a  higher  state :  still  material,  but  sublimated 
in  such  sense  that  its  matter  is  no  longer  the 
restraining  and  hampering  medium  that  we  now 
know,  but  the  perfect  instrument  and  vehicle  of 
the  spiritual  will. 

Our  Lord's  own  resurrection  is  spoken  of  by 
S.  Paul  as  "the  resurrection  of  the  dead"  (in  the 
plural),  because  His  resurrection  is  the  foretaste 
and  assurance  of  the  destiny  of  all  men.  He  is  the 
Man — our  real  representative.  In  His  resurrec- 
tion we  see  the  issue  of  life  for  all  of  us  who 


The  Last  Things 


77 


belong  to  Him.  This  is  a  commonplace  of  the 
New  Testament. 

There  are  three  further  remarks  which  I  should 
wish  to  make  about  the  Christian  doctrine  of 
immortality. 

1.  As  to  the  basis  on  which  it  rests.  It  rests 
on  moral  considerations  raised  to  the  point  of 
certain  conviction  by  the  resurrection  of  our  Lord. 
Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that,  if  the  supreme 
and  only  governor  of  the  world  is  a  perfectly  just 
and  good  God,,  we  do  not  see  the  end  of  His 
operations  upon  individuals  or  upon  society  in 
this  world.  It  must  be  that  "the  more  parts  of 
His  works  are  hid,"  and  the  fulfilment  of  justice 
and  righteousness  is  not  seen  on  this  side  of  death. 
The  most  extreme  instance  of  this  incompleteness 
would  be  the  life  of  Christ  ending  at  Calvary  in 
consummate  failure  and  shame.  There  must  be, 
we  feel,  something  more.  And  the  other  moral 
argument  is  equally  forcible.  If  there  be  an 
eternal  God  who  raises  men  into  intimate  com- 
munion with  Himself,  it  cannot  be  imagined  that 
He  will  leave  the  human  person  who  has  been 
allowed  to  become  His  friend  to  perish  like  a 
worm.  We  watch  a  good  old  man's  faculties  fail- 
ing, his  faculties  physical  and  intellectual.  But 
there  is  something  which  shows  no  signs  of  fail- 
ing— that  is  the  assurance  of  communion  with 
God  and  the  quiet  confidence  that  beyond  death 


78  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


he  is  going  to  a  still  more  intimate  fellowship  with 
his  divine  friend.  These  and  the  like  considera- 
tions have  made  the  belief  in  immortality  seem 
inseparable  from  the  higher  kind  of  faith  in  God. 
It  is  this  sort  of  longing  confidence  which  first  the 
teaching  of  Christ  and  then  His  resurrection  con- 
firmed. It  is  in  this  sense  that  S.  Paul  declares 
that  God  "brought  life  and  incorruption  to  light 
through  the  gospel." 

2.  It  must  never  be  forgotten  that  that  ancient 
people  amongst  whom  our  faith  was  developed,  as 
we  believe  under  divine  leading,  were  definitely 
debarred  by  their  laws  from  what  we  call  spirit- 
ualism. They  were  not  to  seek  to  have  dealings 
with  the  dead.  We  should  be  loath  indeed  to 
limit  scientific  curiosity  or  to  deny  the  lawfulness 
of  any  kind  of  serious  investigation  into  facts. 
But  spiritualism  is  very  prevalent  in  our  time,  and 
we  can  watch  its  effects  on  men  and  women  over 
a  wide  area.  It  seems  to  stimulate  in  them  ex- 
actly that  sort  of  excitement  and  curiosity  which 
needs  to  be  repressed,  and  to  tend  to  a  morbid  sort 
of  religiousness  which  is  very  unlike  Christianity. 
I  cannot  help  often  feeling  that,  if  the  experiences 
which  spiritualists  report  are  true  experiences,  it 
is  more  likely  that  they  are  the  victims  of  clever 
demons  than  in  real  communication  with  the 
spirits  of  just  men  being  made  perfect.  At  any 
rate  it  is  of  the  greatest  importance  that  we 


The  Last  Things 


79 


should  keep  it  clearly  before  men's  minds  that  the 
Christian's  belief  in  immortality  should  follow 
from  and  depend  upon  his  belief  in  God. 

3.  No  doubt  over  a  large  area  of  Christianity 
the  resurrection  of  the  body  has  been  supposed 
to  mean  that  the  material  atoms  of  our  present 
bodies  are  to  be  re-collected  and  become  the  resur- 
rection bodies.  This  to  a  more  scientific  age  is 
inconceivable,  and  the  appeal  to  divine  omnip- 
otence is  very  unsatisfying.  So  it  is  a  comfort  to 
feel  that  some  early  Christian  thinkers  held  a 
more  reasonable  view,  and  that  this  rather  than 
the  cruder  belief  is  suggested  by  S.  Paul  in  his 
treatment  of  the  resurrection.'  He  there  contem- 
plates three  sorts  of  resurrection.  There  is  the 
resurrection  of  Christ  on  the  third  day,  which  we 
must  suppose  to  have  involved  the  transformation 
of  His  dead  body  in  the  tomb  into  the  spiritual 
body  of  His  resurrection.  Secondly,  there  is  the 
sudden  transformation  "in  a  moment,  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye,  at  the  last  trump,"  of  those 
whom  the  last  day  shall  find  alive.  This  he 
speaks  of  as  "a  mystery,"  doubtless  remembering 
that  "we  see  through  a  glass  darkly"  the  experi- 
ences of  the  last  day.  Intermediate  between  these 
two  he  speaks  of  the  resurrection  of  those  who 
had  fallen  asleep  in  Christ,  and  whose  bodies  had 
"seen  corruption." 

'  In  1  Cor.  XV. 


1 


80 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


Specially  in  view  of  their  case  he  conceives  that 
the  earlier  "natural"  bodies  were,  to  speak  in  a 
figure,  the  seeds  of  the  spiritual  bodies  that  should 
be.  Death  and  corruption,  while  it  dissolves  the 
natural  body,  enables  God  to  give  to  each  his  own 
proper  spiritual  body.  This  suggests  a  continu- 
ous personal  identity,  but  it  does  not  suggest  the 
re-collection  of  material  particles.  It  makes  us 
prefer  the  phrase  "the  resurrection  of  the  body" 
or  "of  the  dead"  to  the  phrase  "the  resurrection  of 
the  flesh" ;  for  "flesh  and  blood,"  S.  Paul  says, 
"shall  not  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God."  But  it 
leaves  us  with  the  assurance  that  perfected  man- 
hood in  us,  as  in  Christ,  shall  have  its  perfect 
spiritual  organ  and  expression,  its  spiritual  body. 

JUDGMENT  AND  HELL 

We  have  spoken  of  the  blessed  dead ;  but  there 
is  another  and  an  awful  side  to  our  belief  about 
the  end.  It  is  not  the  idea  of  our  religion  that  "we 
are  all  going  to  the  same  place."  Life  is  repre- 
sented to  us  in  the  Bible,  and  nowhere  with  more 
penetrating  simplicity  than  in  our  Lord's  teach- 
ing, as  an  awful  choice  between  two  alternatives. 
We  are  always  choosing  life  or  death,  light  or 
darkness,  good  or  evil.  By  choosing  the  evil  or 
the  darkness  we  pass  under  divine  judgment. 
Judgment  on  the  evil  choice  is  not  to  be  con- 
sidered as  an  arbitrary  act  of  God,  but  as  the 


The  Last  Things 


81 


inevitable  consequence  of  the  choice  itself.  Acts 
form  habits,  and  habits  stereotype  into  a  settled 
character  which  becomes  more  and  more  fixed. 
And  if  the  character  be  determined  by  lust  or 
pride  or  hatred  or  falsehood,  if  these  things  be- 
come the  man's  real  self,  death  does  not  change 
him.  The  awfulness  of  death  is  that  it  does  not 
change  us,  but  only  sets  us  naked  and  bare  in  the 
presence  of  the  holiness  of  God. 

In  a  famous  passage  of  Isaiah  the  coming  of 
God  to  Israel  in  His  awful  holiness  is  described 
by  the  metaphor  of  fire.  The  sinners  in  Zion  are 
afraid.  "Who  among  us,"  they  cry,  "shall  dwell 
with  the  devouring  fire?  Who  among  us  shall 
dwell  with  everlasting  burnings?"  The  answer  is 
that  only  the  righteous  man  can  dwell  with  God. 
God  cannot  change  Himself.  He  cannot  take  the 
character  which  has  become  determined  for  evil 
into  union  with  Himself.  He  is  indeed  infinitely 
merciful,  but  He  cannot  save  us  in  spite  of  our- 
selves. That  is  the  terrible  prerogative  of  our 
freedom.  And  if  words  mean  anything  we  are 
assured  by  our  Lord  and  His  apostles  that  obsti- 
nate refusal  of  the  light,  obstinate  adherence  to 
the  wrong,  may  bring  the  soul  to  a  spiritual  ruin 
so  complete  as  to  become  final  and  irreversible. 
I  do  not  think  it  is  possible  to  attach  any  other 
sense  to  the  tremendous  language  of  the  New 
Testament. 


82 


The  Religion  of  ihe  Church 


Our  Lord  means  us  to  take  this  warning  to  our- 
selves, rather  than  to  inquire  about  others.  But 
hell,  since  there  is  a  hell,  becomes  part  of  the  scene 
of  the  future,  and  must  be  fitted  somehow  into 
our  whole  picture  of  the  universe  as  it  shall  be. 
The  last  judgment,  which  is  depicted  in  tremen- 
dous imagery,  leaves  men  divided  into  "saved" 
and  "lost." 

There  has  been  a  vigorous  reaction  against  the 
"old-fashioned"  teaching  of  hell.  This  was  in  part 
quite  legitimate,  for  God  had  been  represented  by- 
current  Calvinism  as  creating  multitudes  of  men 
irreversibly  doomed  to  hell  from  their  creation, 
and  even  more  generally  as  condemning  to  hell 
those  who,  through  no  fault  of  their  own,  had 
failed  to  believe  and  be  baptized — even  the 
heathen,  for  instance,  who  had  never  heard  of 
Christ,  and  unbaptized  infants,  who  had  no  capac- 
ity for  choice.  Now  we  who  believe  in  Christ 
know  nothing  more  certainly  than  the  character 
of  God.  We  know  that  He  is  perfect  love,  perfect 
equity.  We  are  quite  justified  in  refusing  to 
believe  about  Him  anything  which  would  be  in- 
consistent with  the  highest  goodness  that  we  can 
conceive.  We  can  be  quite  sure  that  He  will  do 
the  best  possible  for  every  soul  whom  He  has 
created.  And  we  know  that  He  has  worlds 
beyond  this — ages  of  ages — in  which  He  can  carry 
out  His  hitherto  unfulfilled  designs.   Any  idea  of 


The  Last  Things 


83 


souls  destined  for  hell  by  an  irreversible  decree 
of  God  we  may  quite  dismiss  out  of  our  horizon. 
"God  will  have  all  men  to  be  saved,  and  to  come 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth." 

Thus,  if  souls  are  to  be  lost,  it  must  be  through 
their  own  fault.  Those  who  have  had  no  oppor- 
tunity can  be  supplied  with  opportunity,  we  must 
suppose,  in  some  unknown  world.  Of  course  the 
Bible  is  written  for  those  who  have  opportunity. 
For  them  indeed  "now  is  the  accepted  time;  now 
is  the  day  of  salvation" ;  and  they  have  no  right 
to  expect  another  opportunity  if  they  reject  this 
one.  But  we  are  glad  to  notice  that  S.  Peter 
speaks  confidently  of  our  Lord  in  Hades  as 
preaching  the  Gospel  to  the  dead,  with  the  inten- 
tion that,  though  they  were  judged  according  to 
men  in  the  flesh,  they  might  live  according  to  God 
in  the  spirit.*  And  we  rightly  resent  on  behalf  of 
the  church  the  closing  of  any  avenue  of  hope 
which  the  Divine  Spirit  has  not  closed,  and  the 
pretension  to  any  fuller  knowledge  than  in  fact  is 
given  to  us. 

If  I  am  to  lay  down  definite  conclusions  I 
should  say — (1)  that  the  universalism  which  is  so 
popular  to-day— the  belief  that  every  created 
spirit  must  ultimately  be  recovered  to  fulfil  the 
end  of  its  being  in  God,  though  it  is  supported 
by  some  early  Christian  authorities,  and  though 
*  1  S.  Pet.  iii.  19 ;  iv.  6. 


84 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


it  has  never  been  formally  condemned  by  the 
church  with  any  ecumenical  judgment,  is  flatly 
contrary,  plainly  contrary,  to  the  language  used 
by  our  Lord  about  the  destinies  of  men,  and  gen- 
erally to  the  language  of  the  New  Testament. 

(2)  That  I  do  not  think  that,  by  excluding 
universalism,  we  are  absolutely  shut  up  into  the 
almost  intolerable  belief  in  unending  conscious 
torment  for  the  lost.  The  language  of  the  Bible 
does  not  necessarily  suggest  this.'  I  do  not  think 
that  it  supplies  us  with  any  ground  for  the  dogma 
that  the  consciousness  of  a  man  once  created  is 
indestructible.  Final  moral  ruin  may  involve,  I 
cannot  but  think,  such  a  dissolution  of  personality 
as  carries  with  it  the  cessation  of  personal  con- 
sciousness. In  this  way  the  final  ruin  of  irre- 
trievably lost  spirits,  awful  as  it  is  to  contem- 
plate, may  be  found  consistent  with  S.  Paul's 
anticipation  of  a  universe  in  which  ultimately  God 
is  to  be  all  in  all — which  does  not  seem  to  be  really 
compatible  with  the  existence  of  a  region  of 
everlastingly  tormented  and  rebellious  spirits ; 
while  at  the  same  time  the  awful  warnings  of  our 
Lord  and  His  apostles  as  to  the  inevitable  conse- 
quences of  wilful  final  sin  supply  to  every  one 

°  The  only  phrase  which  expresses  the  idea  clearly  is  Rev. 
XX.  10.  There  it  refers  to  the  beast  and  the  false  prophet, 
confessedly  symbolical  figures,  as  well  as  to  the  devil.  And 
in  this  book  all  the  measures  of  time  are  symbolical. 


The  Last  Things 


85 


who  chooses  to  think  at  all  a  most  powerful 
motive  to  prefer  any  effort  to  the  risk  of  "losing 
his  own  soul." 

THE  INTERMEDIATE  STATE  AND  PURGATORY 

It  is  certainly  the  case  that  the  revelation  of  the 
New  Testament  is  not  given  us  to  satisfy  our 
curiosity  or  to  let  us  feel  that  we  know  or  can 
know  the  future  state  otherwise  than  "in  part." 
What  is  told  us  is  sufficient  to  make  faith  firm  and 
hope  active,  and  (we  must  add)  to  strengthen  the 
natural  fears  of  an  evil  conscience — but  certainly 
not  to  enable  us  to  anticipate  the  experience  of 
another  world.  Certainly  the  final  bliss  of  man  is 
identified  with  the  kingdom  which  is  to  come  after 
the  end  of  the  world  and  the  day  of  judgment; 
and  we  are  led  to  believe  in  an  intermediate  state 
of  (in  some  sense)  disembodied  souls,  in  a  condi- 
tion of  waiting  or  expectancy,  following  on  the 
"particular  judgment" — that  is,  the  disclosure 
of  a  man's  real  state  which  appears  to  be 
associated  with  each  one's  death.  About  this 
intermediate  state  we  are  told  exceedingly  little, 
but  we  are  led  to  suppose  that  there  is  such  a  state 
both  for  good  and  bad,  and  that  it  is  a  state  of 
conscious  life,  and  for  those  who  have  departed 
in  Christ  a  state  of  greater  nearness  to  Him,  a 
being  "in  Christ"  and  "with  Christ." 

It  is  a  state  where  the  souls  of  just  men  are 


86 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


made  perfect.  There  is  infinite  satisfaction  about 
such  phrases.  But  how  much  they  are  allowed  to 
know  about  us  who  remain  on  earth,  and  about 
the  incidents  of  earth,  we  are  not  informed.  Nor 
can  we  tell  at  all  what  the  lapse  of  time,  as  we 
know  it,  may  mean  to  them.  It  was  one  view 
held  in  the  early  church  that  souls  at  death  are 
made  suddenly  and  instantaneously  perfect  for 
good  or  evil.  But  this  idea  has  not  proved  accept- 
able. We  almost  all  instinctively  tend  to  believe 
in  some  sort  of  purgatory,  a  state  of  cleansing 
and  gradual  emancipation  and  enlightenment  for 
the  imperfect.  As  regards  any  such  purgatorial 
state,  however,  we  must  confess  that  the  New 
Testament  is  absolutely  silent.'  S.  Augustine 
allows  it  with  a  "perhaps."  And  we  cannot  get 
beyond  that.  It  is  rather  a  conclusion  of  our 
natural  reason  than  a  revealed  truth.  And  inas- 
much as  the  Roman  church  is  specially  identified 
with  the  teaching  of  purgatory,  it  is  important  to 
notice  that  the  ameliorative  aspect  of  purgatory 
is  not  that  on  which  the  Roman  church  has  laid 
stress.  According  to  the  Roman  doctrine,  though 
all  bad  habits  and  vicious  inclinations  of  the  soul 
be  instantly  purified  away  by  the  momentary  fire 
of  the  particular  judgment,  or  the  accompanying 

°  S.  Paul's  much-quoted  words  (1  Cor.  iii.  12-15)  about  a 
man  "being  saved,  yet  so  as  by  fire,"  have  really  nothing  to 
do  with  the  matter. 


The  Last  Things 


87 


vision  of  God,  and  though  the  soul  be  rendered 
instantly  fit  for  heaven,  yet  it  is  detained  in  pain 
simply  to  work  out  the  temporal  punishment  due 
to  its  sins.  The  Roman  purgatory  is  thus  pre- 
dominantly penal  or  vindictive.  What  we  mod- 
erns desire  is  the  purgatory,  penal  indeed,  but 
predominantly  educative  and  ameliorative,  which 
certain  great  Christian  teachers  have  imagined. 
In  that  we  may — nay,  I  feel,  we  must — believe; 
but  it  is  rather  a  conclusion  of  our  reasoning  than 
a  part  of  what  is  revealed. 

THE  COMMUNION  OF  SAINTS 

This  article  of  belief  was  added  as  an  expansion 
of  the  article  about  the  holy  catholic  church.  It 
means  that  all  the  redeemed,  living  and  departed, 
are  in  one  fellowship,  which  death  does  not  inter- 
rupt. The  visible  catholic  church  is  only  a  part 
of  the  whole  church.  Only  the  lower  limbs  of 
the  body  of  Christ  are  visible  to  us.  We  are  in 
communion  also  with  the  dead,  "with  the  spirits 
of  just  men  made  perfect"  and — we  are  not  pro- 
hibited from  adding — with  the  spirits  of  just  men 
being  made  perfect.  How  are  we  to  exercise  this 
fellowship? 

There  can  be  no  real  question  that  in  the  Middle 
Ages  a  superstructure  of  largely  rotten  material 
but  of  very  portentous  weight  had  been  built  upon 


88 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


the  basis  of  the  belief  in  the  communion  of  saints. 
Current  ideas  about  purgatory  and  indulgences 
and  invocation  of  saints,  and  current  practices 
based  on  these  ideas,  were  most  urgently  in  need 
of  amendment  and  reform.  But  the  reaction  of 
Protestantism  was  culpably  unguarded,  and  the 
Church  of  England  shared  in  this  lamentable 
reaction,  so  that,  in  result,  we  almost  forgot  in 
our  practical  and  public  religion  our  continued 
fellowship  with  the  blessed  dead.  One  may  ques- 
tion whether  mediaeval  superstitions  have  not 
been  preferable  to  our  blank  ignoring  of  the  com- 
munion of  the  saints.  We  must  aim  at  living 
without  superstition,  but  also  in  the  full  light  of 
truth.  And  the  communion  of  saints,  as  its  name 
implies,  is  pre-eminently  a  matter  for  public 
recognition  and  not  merely  private  memory. 

There  are  in  particular  two  expressions  of  the 
communion  of  saints  on  the  restoration  of  which 
in  our  common  as  well  as  our  private  worship  we 
ought  to  insist. 

1.  We  must  recover  without  apology  or  con- 
cealment the  practice  of  prayer  for  the  dead.  It  is 
matter  of  revelation  that  the  departed  are  alive 
and  waiting  their  final  perfection.  They  need 
something  as  we  need  something.  And  therefore 
we  may  pray  for  them.  That  is  a  practice  inevi- 
tably resulting  from  the  revealed  belief  about  the 
efficacy  of  prayer  for  others  in  all  their  real  needs. 


The  Last  Things 


89 


I  should  contend  that  S.  Paul  prayed  for  his  dead 
friend  Onesiphorus.'  I  am  sure  that  the  church 
has  always  prayed  for  the  dead,  for  light  and 
refreshment  and  peace,  and  that  they  may  receive 
forgiveness  and  mercy  of  the  Lord.  I  do  not  want 
to  define.  But  I  must  insist  upon  my  right  to 
pray,  leaving- all  unknown  things  in  God's  hands. 
And  I  must  demand  this  right,  by  legitimate 
authority,  in  the  public  services. 

2.  Besides  praying  for  our  dead  generally, 
besides  keeping  again  our  All  Souls'  Day,  we 
should  remember  specially  the  heroes  of  our  faith, 
those  whom  in  a  special  sense  we  call  saints. 
The  ancient  church  used  to  commemorate  them 
solemnly  by  name.  Moreover,  believing  that 
nothing  could  be  more  practically  certain  than 
that  the  perfected  spirits  were  occupied  in  prop- 
erly spiritual  activity,  and  that  their  larger  love, 
in  the  unseen  world,  must  lead  them  to  pray  for 
us  who  remain  in  this  world,  the  ancient  church 
desired  to  have  them  for  its  intercessors,  and 
solemnly  asked  God  that  it  might  be  allowed  to 
benefit  by  their  intercessions.  S.  Cyril  of  Jerusa- 
lem speaks  thus  of  the  commemoration  of  the 
dead,  which  in  his  days  followed  the  consecration 
of  the  eucharist.  "Afterwards  we  make  mention 
also  of  those  who  have  fallen  asleep,  first  of 
patriarchs,  prophets,  apostles,  martyrs,  that  God 
'  2  Tim.  i.  18. 


90 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


by  their  prayers  and  intercessions  will  receive 
our  supplications.  Then  also  (we  pray)  on  behalf 
of  our  holy  fathers  and  bishops,  and  generally  of 
all  those  who  have  fallen  asleep  amongst  us,  be- 
lieving that  there  will  be  the  greatest  benefit  to 
the  souls  of  those  on  whose  behalf  our  prayer  is 
offered  up  while  the  holy  and  tremendous  sacrifice 
is  amongst  us."  ' 

I  should  earnestly  wish  to  see  restored  amongst 
us  the  public  commemoration,  as  in  the  First 
Prayer  Book,  of  "the  wonderful  grace  and  virtue, 
declared  in  all  Thy  saints  from  the  beginning  of 
the  world :  and  chiefly  in  the  glorious  and  most 
blessed  Virgin  Mary,  mother  of  Thy  Son  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord  and  God,  and  in  the  holy  patri- 
archs, prophets,  apostles,  and  martyrs" ;  and  I 
would  have  this  general  commemoration  accom- 
panied not  only  as  in  the  First  Book,  by  direct 
prayers  for  the  dead  generally,  but  also  by  a 
specific  request  to  God  that  we  may  be  allowed 
the  benefit  of  the  intercession  of  the  saints. 

This  has  been  called  comprecation.  But  the 
main  body  of  the  church,  since  the  fifth  century 
of  its  life,  has  not  been  satisfied  without  directly 
asking  the  saints  for  their  prayers  (invocation), 
though  it  was  long  before  these  direct  invocations 
were  admitted  into  the  public  services.  As  to 
this  I  do  not  feel  that  anything  could  be  more 
*  Catechesis  myst.  v.  9. 


The  Last  Things 


91 


natural ;  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that,  to  sustain 
it,  we  need  the  assurance  that  we  can  have  direct 
access  to  the  saints,  and  that  they  can  directly 
hear  us ;  and  it  is  exactly  this  which  the  church, 
by  the  admissions  of  its  theologians,  is  not  author- 
ized to  give  us.  The  theologians  of  the  mediaeval 
church  tell  us  only  that  the  saints  are  allowed  to 
see  us  and  our  needs  in  God ;  which  I  suppose 
may  be  expressed  in  other  words  by  saying  that, 
if  we  cannot  get  at  them  to  address  them  directly, 
yet  we  can  be  sure  that  God  will  disclose  to  them 
what  He  sees  fit  that  they  should  know.  But,  if 
this  is  so,  it  would  seem  to  follow  that  we  had 
better  make  our  prayers  to  God  that  He  will  be 
pleased  to  let  the  saints  know  our  needs  and  let 
us  profit  by  their  prayers.  The  instinct  of  invo- 
cation, however,  has  been  widespread  and  almost 
irresistible.  It  is  not  only  Romish  :  for  the  Chris- 
tians of  the  East  use  it  as  much  as  the  Christians 
of  the  West.  They  address  with  familiar  con- 
fidence not  only  the  famous  saints  but  their  own 
departed  friends.  Certainly  we  are  not  called 
upon  to  forbid  such  invocation.  But  the  sense  of 
what  is  not  revealed  to  us  should  restrain  our 
use  of  it,  even  in  private,  and,  following  the  prac- 
tice of  the  ancient  church,  we  should  admit  into 
our  public  services  no  prayers  but  those  addressed 
to  God. 


CHAPTER  VI 


Christian  Moralit}) 

PREOCCUPATION  with  the  dead  and  curi- 
osity about  the  world  of  the  dead  must,  if 
we  are  to  judge  by  a  Biblical  standard,  be  pro- 
nounced morbid  features  in  religion.  The  New 
Testament  gives  us  indeed  the  most  complete 
assurance  about  the  state  and  prospects  of  "them 
that  are  fallen  asleep,"  and  the  abiding  sense  of 
communion  with  them ;  but  information  about 
their  state  is  given  us  with  such  reserve  as  to 
direct  our  faculties  towards  this  world,  which 
really  lies  open  before  us,  and  which  God  has 
given  into  our  charge.  Thus  the  unworldliness 
of  Christians  is  to  make  them  only  more  effective 
in  the  world.  God  is  to  be  first  in  their  lives — 
in  unquestioned  and  undisputed  supremacy ;  but 
they  are  to  test  the  reality  of  their  love  of  God 
only  by  their  conduct  towards  their  fellow  men. 
Their  manner  of  life  is  to  be  heavenly;  it  is  to 
draw  all  its  motives  and  power  from  that  heav- 
enly place  where  Christ  is  seated  at  the  right 
hand  of  God,  it  is  to  measure  everything  by  the 


Christian  Morality 


93 


issues  of  eternal  life  and  eternal  death ;  but  all 
this  "other-worldliness,"  so  far  from  making  them 
indifferent  to  this  world,  is  only  to  make  them  feel 
the  importance  of  everything  that  happens  in  this 
world,  because  of  its  divine  origin  and  eternal 
issues.  And  it  is  the  spectacle  of  what  Christians 
are  in  the  life  which  they  share  with  all  other 
men  which,  by  its  moral  attractiveness,  is  to  draw 
men  to  Christ :  that  "wherein  they  speak  against 
you  as  evil-doers,  they  may  by  your  good  works, 
which  they  shall  behold,  glorify  God  in  the  day 
of  visitation."  ' 

Thus  we  come  to  consider  Christian  morality 
or  ethics — the  principles  of  Christian  life,  indi- 
vidual and  social.  And,  of  course,  we  must  make 
our  beginning  from  Him  who  sets  the  standard 
for  Christians — from  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

THE  MIND  OF  CHRIST 

What  we  have  to  consider  is  the  spirit  of  our 
Lord's  human  life  and  teaching.  Great  mistakes 
have  been  made  through  forgetting  both  what 
our  Lord,  in  the  place  in  history  which  He  filled, 
was  able  to  assume,  and  also  what  He  deliberately 
refused  to  anticipate.  Forgetting  these  consider- 
ations, very  different  classes  of  people  have 
argued,  mistakenly  as  I  think,  from  the  silence  of 

'  1  S.  Pet.  ii.  12. 


94 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


Christ.  "He  never  occupied  Himself  with  social 
legislation  or  reform,"  says  one  group ;  "there- 
fore the  Christian  church  ought  not  to  do  so." 
"He  said  nothing  to  inspire  patriotism  or  to 
justify  war,  and  much  to  require  personal  meek- 
ness and  non-resistance,"  says  another  group; 
"and  therefore  no  Christian  can  rightly  be  a  sol- 
dier." "He  said  nothing  about  church  building 
or  religious  ceremonial ;  therefore,"  says  yet 
another  group,  "it  is  not  really  proper  for  the 
Christian  to  be  much  occupied  in  the  external 
organization  of  worship."  But  all  these  groups 
of  people  who  use  the  same  arguments  from  dif- 
ferent points  of  view  forget  what  is  of  great 
importance.  Our  Lord  assumes  not  only  the 
lofty  personal  morality  but  also  the  social  order 
of  the  Old  Testament,  to  which  he  ascribes  divine 
authority,  and  which  was  full  of  detailed  social 
legislation  and  social  instruction.  What  He  sets 
Himself  to  do  within  the  Jewish  people  is  to 
restore  and  perfect  the  spirit  which  lies  behind 
legislation — the  spirit  of  humanity.  And,  so  far 
as  He  contemplated  the  future.  He  seems  delib- 
erately to  have  abstained  from  making  laws  for 
His  disciples  in  the  main ;  but  He  intends  His 
society  to  legislate  in  His  own  name  and  Spirit 
after  He  should  have  gone  out  of  sight.  And  He 
said,  "He  that  heareth  you  heareth  Me."  ' 
^S.  Lukex.  16. 


Christian  Morality 


95 


Again,  war  will  doubtless  cease  when  the  mass 
of  men  are  really,  even  if  imperfectly.  Christians. 
For  their  international  fellowship  will  then  be 
based  on  something  better  than  selfishness,  indi- 
vidual or  corporate.  But  meanwhile  each  nation 
has  a  vocation  and  a  divine  right  to  exist.  In  the 
recent  memory  of  Israel,  when  our  Lord  came, 
the  Maccabees  had  been  their  national  heroes, 
who  had  fought  for  their  national  existence  when 
it  was  threatened,  and  had  waged  a  great  war  of 
self-defence.  Every  patriotic  Israelite  gloried 
in  them.  There  is  not  the  slightest  reason  to 
think  that  our  Lord  would  have  repudiated  them ; 
and,  though  He  made  it  evident  that  political  in- 
dependence was  not  now  the  vocation  of  Israel, 
there  is  no  reason  to  think  He  would  have  for- 
bidden a  nation  which  had  received  the  faith  He 
came  to  impart  to  defend  its  boundaries  against 
invaders  or  assist  in  defending  some  other  nation. 
Our  Lord  does  indeed  repudiate  pride  and  corpo- 
rate selfishness,  and  requires  us  to  love  our  neigh- 
bors as  ourselves.  This  is  to  repudiate  a  great 
deal  that  has  paraded  itself  as  patriotism  in 
human  history.  But  there  is  a  true  patriotism 
which  believes  in  the  divine  purpose  for  each 
nation,  and  cannot,  for  the  sake  of  all,  allow  the 
insolent  aggression  of  others  upon  its  legitimate 
liberty.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  idle  to  argue  from 
what  our  Lord  says  about  personal  submission  to 


96 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


injuries  that  He  would  have  refused  to  allow  a 
man  to  defend  either  his  wife  and  children  or  his 
country. 

Once  more,  ceremonial  observances  belong  to 
human  nature  everywhere.  "Duties  of  religion," 
says  Richard  Hooker,  "performed  by  whole  so- 
cieties of  men  ought  to  have  in  them  a  sensible 
excellency  correspondent  to  the  majesty  of  Him 
whom  we  worship."  Our  Lord  shows  not  the 
slightest  antipathy  to  the  religious  ceremonialism 
of  Israel.  There  is  not  a  word  against  it.  He 
condemns  not  forms  but  empty  forms.  When 
His  own  redemptive  action  had  so  deeply  changed 
the  basis  of  religious  observance,  it  would  be  the 
function  of  His  church  to  provide  for  suitable 
religious  ceremonial.  Meanwhile  He  contents 
Himself  with  refashioning  the  spirit  of  worship 
as  of  human  life  generally. 

How  shall  we  seek  to  describe  the  moral  spirit 
of  Jesus? 

1.  He  bases  morality  in  the  heart  and  will. 
Every  settled  society  must  have  legislation  both 
negative  and  positive  in  order  to  protect  itself, 
and  such  legislation  is  concerned  exclusively  with 
outward  acts.  For  the  Jews  this  legislation  had 
a  divine  sanction.  Moreover  every  settled  society 
develops  standards  of  respectability  which  its 
public  opinion  sedulously  maintains.  Nowhere 
was  this  more  marked  than  in  Jewish  society. 


Christian  Morality 


97 


But  our  Lord  absolutely  refuses  to  be  content 
with  such  external  standards.  He  insists  on  for- 
cing back  the  standards  of  personal  purity  and 
mutual  duty  into  the  inner  sphere  of  motive  and 
desire — into  the  heart  of  man,  which  only  God 
can  see.  He  would  have  us  regard  the  deliberate 
will  to  commit  adultery  as  equivalent  to  the  act 
itself;  and  the  first  movement  of  anger  in  the 
heart  as  a  sin  deserving  of  punishment;  and  He 
carries  back  the  sin  of  swearing  falsely  till  its 
correction  is  found  in  a  universal  truthfulness. 
He  will  not  allow  that  outward  observances  can 
be  the  source  of  moral  defilement,  but  only  the 
inward  will  of  the  heart.  This  He  applies  equally 
to  all  the  three  aspects  of  morality — our  duty  to 
God,  our  duty  to  ourselves,  and  our  duty  to  our 
neighbor;  and  to  the  corresponding  kinds  of  re- 
ligious action — to  prayer,  fasting,  and  almsgiving. 
The  real  value  of  each  lies  in  the  inner  region 
where  "your  Father  seeth  in  secret." 

2.  It  follows  from  this  that  our  Lord  would 
have  us  intensely  alive  to  the  perils  of  living  by 
public  opinion.  He  is  forever  pointing  out  its 
defectiveness  and  its  blinding  effect  upon  the  con- 
science. The  Pharisees,  for  instance,  were  in- 
tensely conscientious,  only  their  conscience  was 
blinded  to  the  most  important  considerations  by 
their  tradition.  "Thus  have  ye  made  the  word  of 
God  of  none  effect  because  of  your  tradition." 


98 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


"How  can  ye  believe  which  receive  glory  one  of 
another,  and  the  glory  that  cometh  from  the  only 
God  ye  seek  not?"  "Take  heed  that  the  light 
that  is  in  you  be  not  darkness." '  This  is  a  tre- 
mendously important  consideration.  Respectabil- 
ity is  not  morality. 

Every  society  in  the  pursuit  of  its  own  ideals 
tends  to  draw  a  distinction  between  the  sins 
which  are  disreputable,  and  merit  social  repro- 
bation, and  those  for  which  there  is  easy  condona- 
tion, or  which  can  even  be  taken  for  granted.  Our 
Lord  will  have  no  such  distinction.  He  carries 
sin  back  to  the  heart,  to  the  inner  relation  of  a 
man  to  God  and  his  neighbour,  and  He  will  have 
no  distinction  between  respectable  and  disrepu- 
table sins.  No  one  can  accuse  our  Lord  of  laxity 
as  to  sexual  sins.  But  He  will  never  suffer  us  to 
consider  the  sins  of  the  flesh,  or  other  sins  which 
make  a  man  disreputable,  as  if  they  were  worse 
than  covetousness  or  selfishness  or  pride  which 
are  consistent  with  respectability.  Indeed  our 
Lord's  deepest  indignation  is  expressed  towards 
the  sins  of  the  Pharisees  who  stood  highest  in 
public  estimation.  This  refusal  to  recognize  any 
moral  distinction  between  respectable  and  dis- 
reputable sins  strikes  a  tremendous  blow  at  the 
current  morality  of  almost  any  settled  society, 
especially  if  it  be  religious. 

'  S.  Matt.  XV.  6 ;  S.  John  v.  44 ;  S.  Luke  xi.  35. 


Christian  Moralii}) 


99 


3.  If  all  real  morality  lies  in  a  right  relation  to 
God  in  the  heart,  everything  depends  on  the  right 
idea  of  God.  Our  Lord  was  forever  declaring 
His  fatherhood,  His  equal  love  and  care  for  every 
one  of  His  children.  Here  we  get  to  the  heart  of 
our  Lord's  moral  teaching  and  practice.  He  "hid 
not  Himself  from  His  own  flesh."  He  dealt  with 
every  one,  however  much  an  outcast  from  re- 
spectable society,  with  an  equal  regard.  He  loved 
every  man.  Though  His  special  mission  was  only 
to  Israel,  He  made  it  quite  plain  that  this  was 
only  a  temporary  limitation.  He  welcomed  the 
faith  which  he  found  in  the  Roman  centurion  and 
the  Syrophenician  woman.  His  love  knew  no 
limits.  His  compassion  went  out  towards  every 
one's  need.  He  approached  every  one  with  the 
respect  due  to  manhood  and  womanhood.  He 
made  no  account  of  wealth  or  intellect  or  social 
importance.  He  treated  things  which  give  men 
privileged  positions  as  if  they  were  positive  ob- 
stacles to  their  entrance  into  the  kingdom.  He 
did  not  think  of  God  as  if  He  were  all  mildness. 
He  proclaimed  the  wrath  of  God  as  well  as  His 
mercy.  But  the  wrath  of  God  and  His  own  wrath 
is  specially  directed  against  the  insolence  which 
despises  others  and  which  ignores  the  infinite 
worth  of  every  human  soul.  "Take  heed  that  ye 
despise  not  one  of  these  little  ones."  "It  is  not  the 
will  of  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  that  one  of 


100 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


these  little  ones  should  perish."  "It  were  better 
for  a  man  that  a  millstone  should  be  hanged  about 
his  neck,  and  that  he  should  be  drowned  in  the 
depths  of  the  sea,  than  that  he  should  cause  one 
of  these  little  ones  to  stumble."  * 

4.  Thus  our  Lord's  moral  teaching  centres  in 
the  profound  assertion  of  God's  fatherhood  and 
the  equal  claim  of  all  His  children.  His  morality 
is  a  positive  enthusiasm  for  humanity — for  every 
man  as  such.  That  is  love ;  and  love  carries  with 
it  humility,  which  is  the  frankest  recognition  of 
the  equal  claim  of  every  one  upon  life  —  the 
absolute  refusal  to  exalt  oneself  at  the  expense  of 
another,  or  to  use  any  other  as  an  instrument  for 
one's  own  profit.  The  true  spirit  of  man  is  the 
joy  of  service;  and  the  poorest  and  weakest,  be- 
cause they  need  our  service  more,  are  to  have  the 
first  claim  upon  it.  Thus  over  every  awakened 
soul  our  Lord  seems  to  stand  eliciting,  welcom- 
ing, and  blessing  the  offer  of  self-sacrifice.  Love, 
humility,  service,  and  sacrifice  —  these  are  the 
things  which  characterize  His  life,  and  which  He 
would  have  to  be  the  heart  and  centre  of  the  life 
of  His  disciples.  This  is  the  spirit  in  which  we 
are  to  co-operate  with  the  will  of  our  Father 
which  is  in  heaven.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  our  Lord  first  really  discovered  and  dis- 
closed to  men  the  power  to  lift  and  redeem  which 
'  S.  Matt,  xviii.  10,  14;  S.  Luke  rvii.  2. 


Christian  Morality 


101 


lies  hid  in  compassion  —  compassion  which  is 
wholly  without  contempt,  compassion  which  has 
power  in  it,  because  it  rests  upon  and  is  inspired 
by  the  compassion  of  God. 

THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  EPISTLES 

The  Epistles  of  the  New  Testament  are  per- 
fect expressions  of  the  mind  of  Christ.  In  them, 
all  alike,  we  have  a  wonderful  belief  in  the  ca- 
pacity of  every  individual.  The  gift  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  which  is  the  possession  of  each  member 
of  Christ,  is  the  gift  of  liberty  and  sonship  — 
liberty  meaning  the  power  of  self-control,  the 
control  of  the  passions  and  appetites  by  the  Spirit- 
enabled  will,  and  also  the  capacity  for  intelligent 
co-operation  with  the  purpose  of  God  in  the 
church  and  in  the  world.  But  this  individual 
liberty  is  realized  by  each  only  as  a  member  of 
the  body  in  which  the  law  of  mutual  service 
enriches  each  with  the  gifts  of  all  and  binds  them 
together  in  brotherhood.  The  Christian  Church 
is  "the  body"  of  "the  brotherhood,"  because  here 
only,  where  the  Spirit  dwells,  can  men  realize 
in  sonship  to  God  the  brotherhood  which  is  meant 
for  all.  The  principle  of  brotherhood  means  that 
there  is  to  be  asked  of  each  the  utmost  service 
which  each  can  render,  and  that  there  should  be 
given  to  each  according  to  his  need,  because  if 


1 02  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


one  member  suffer,  or  is  in  want,  the  weakness 
or  suffering  of  each  is  the  weakening  of  the  whole 
body.  Suffering  indeed  will  be  the  lot  of  the 
whole  body  and  of  every  member  of  it,  but  not 
the  misery  of  being  forgotten  or  despised  by  the 
brotherhood  ;  so  that  through  all  afflictions  which 
they  share  with  Christ,  their  Master  and  Head, 
a  spirit  of  rejoicing,  a  "spirit  of  glory  and  of 
God,"  rests  upon  them. 

We  need  to  read  afresh  S.  Paul,  S.  James,  S. 
John,  S.  Peter,  to  see  with  fresh  eyes  how  much 
of  the  real  glory  of  Christian  ethics  we  have  left 
out  of  our  mental  picture.  The  whole  spirit  of 
Christian  morality  is  not  the  glorification  of  the 
individual  but  the  sociable  spirit  of  the  commu- 
nity. The  ethics  of  the  New  Testament  are  social 
ethics.  And,  inasmuch  as  fellowship  amongst  a 
number  of  naturally  divergent  temperaments  lays 
a  great  strain  on  the  forbearance  of  each,  the  test 
of  sincerity  in  Christian  belief  is  found  in  the 
capacity  for  cheerful  membership. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  it  was  the  love  of  Chris- 
tians for  one  another — the  care  of  all  for  each — 
which  was  one  chief  cause  of  the  rapid  spread  of 
the  church.  Men  were  drawn  out  of  a  loveless 
world  into  that  warm  and  comfortable  fellow- 
ship. Equally  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  is  just 
this  spirit  which  could  win  men  to-day.  One  of 
the  most  thoughtful  of  those  who  have  written 


Christian  Moralil^ 


103 


about  our  soldiers  on  the  field  of  battle  bears 
witness  to  the  spirit  of  brotherliness — unselfish- 
ness, generosity,  cheerfulness,  and  humility  — 
which  possesses  them  ;  but  adds  significantly  that 
they  never  think  of  this  as  having  any  connection 
with  religion,  with  Christianity.  "This  is  surely 
nothing  short  of  tragedy.  Here  are  men  who 
believed  absolutely  in  the  Christian  virtues  of 
unselfishness,  generosity,  charity,  and  humility, 
without  ever  connecting  them  in  their  minds  with 
Christ ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  what  they  did 
associate  with  Christianity  was  just  on  a  par 
with  the  formalism  and  smug  self-righteousness 
which  Christ  spent  His  whole  life  in  trying  to 
destroy."  °  That  is  the  melancholy  fact.  We  have 
let  charity  come  to  mean  something  different  from 
brotherly  and  sisterly  love.  We  have  let  it  become 
associated  with  the  idea  of  the  patronage  of  the 
inferior  by  the  superior.  We  have  allowed  men 
to  say  that  they  want  "not  charity,  but  justice" 
— as  if  charity  were  anything  else  than  justice 
perfected. 

What  we  must  ask  of  Churchmen  is  to  bathe 
themselves  again  in  the  spirit  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  to  set  themselves  so  resolutely  to  repro- 
duce it,  that  "ecclesiastical"  shall  once  again  come 
to  mean  brotherly. 

"A  Student  in  Arms,  pp.  117-18.  London:  Andrew  Mel- 
rose. 1916. 


104 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


In  our  idea  of  duty — in  our  idea  of  the  sacra- 
ments— in  our  doctrine  of  the  Spirit,  among 
Catholics  and  among  Protestants  we  have  suf- 
fered an  excessive  individualism  to  obliterate  or 
hide  much  that  is  most  essential  and  central  in 
Christian  ethics. 

THE  TEN  COMMANDMENTS 

I  cannot  but  think  that  this  is  partly  due  among 
ourselves  to  the  over-prominent  place  which  has 
been  assigned  in  our  Prayer  Book  to  the  Ten 
Commandments.  Nowhere  in  ancient  Christen- 
dom or  in  modern  Catholicism  outside  our  own 
limits  have  the  Ten  Commandments  been  given  so 
dominant  a  position.  There  is  no  doubt  that  they 
had  behind  them  the  authority  of  God  as  a  code 
of  elementary  law  for  the  people  of  Israel.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  they  set  the  ancient  people  of 
God  upon  the  right  lines.  The  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  human  society,  and  the  true  principles 
of  ethics,  are  to  be  found  there.  Interpreted  as 
our  Lord  interprets  them  they  can  become  a  code 
for  Christians ;  but  the  interpretation  is  a  very 
thorough  transformation.  "Thou  shalt  not  take 
the  name  of  the  Lord  thy  God  in  vain"  becomes 
the  profound  duty  of  truthfulness ;  "thou  shalt  do 
no  murder"  becomes  the  law  of  love;  and  "thou 
shalt  not  commit  adultery"  the  law  of  purity  in 
thought  and  desire.    They  are  transformed,  in 


Christian  Morality 


105 


fact,  from  negative  into  positive  precepts.  They 
all  admit  of  this  sort  of  transformation.  But 
simply  proclaimed  from  the  altar  they  are  not 
understood  in  this  new  sense.  That  God  is  against 
the  sinner — that  they  make  us  feel  with  trem- 
bling. But  they  are,  as  they  stand,  negative  pre- 
cepts— "thou  shalt  not" — and  they  give  an  unduly 
negative  appearance  to  Christian  morality.  They 
forbid  certain  vicious  actions  or  tempers,  and 
allow  us  to  be  satisfied  if  these  particular  oflfences 
are  avoided.  And  some  of  them  are  prohibitions 
which  in  their  original  sense  no  longer  hold.  We 
are  no  longer  prohibited,  like  the  Jews  in  the 
second  commandment,  from  all  representations  of 
created  things  even  in  connection  with  worship. 
The  incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God  has  hallowed 
Christian  art  in  our  churches ;  and  sacred  pictures 
have  become  "the  books  of  the  unlearned."  And 
the  Christian  Sunday,  the  Lord's  Day,  is  cer- 
tainly not  simply  the  Jewish  sabbath  transferred 
to  another  day. 

Of  course  our  Catechism  does  give  a  very 
liberal  interpretation  to  the  Ten  Commandments. 
Let  us  listen  to  it. 

"What  dost  thou  chiefly  learn  by  these  com- 
mandments? 

"I  learn  two  things :  my  duty  towards  God,  and 
my  duty  towards  my  neighbour. 

"What  is  thy  duty  towards  God? 


106 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


"My  duty  towards  God  is  to  believe  in  Him, 
to  fear  Him,  and  to  love  Him,  with  all  my  heart, 
with  all  my  mind,  with  all  my  soul,  and  with  all 
my  strength to  worship  Him,  to  give  Him 
thanks,  to  put  my  whole  trust  in  Him,  to  call  upon 
Him,'  to  honour  His  holy  name  and  His  word,' 
and  to  serve  Him  truly  all  the  days  of  my  life.' 

"What  is  thy  duty  towards  thy  neighbour? 

"My  duty  towards  my  neighbour,  is  to  love  him 
as  myself,  and  to  do  to  all  men,  as  I  would  they 
should  do  unto  me :  to  love,  honour,  and  succour 
my  father  and  mother:  to  honour  and  obey  the 
king,  and  all  that  are  put  in  authority  under  him : 
to  submit  myself  to  all  my  governors,  teachers, 
spiritual  pastors  and  masters :  to  order  myself 
lowly  and  reverently  to  all  my  betters  :'°  to  hurt 
nobody  by  word  nor  deed:  to  be  true  and  just  in 
all  my  dealing:  to  bear  no  malice  nor  hatred  in 
my  heart :"  to  keep  my  hands  from  picking  and 
stealing,"  and  my  tongue  from  evil-speaking, 
lying,  and  slandering:"  to  keep  my  body  in  tem- 
perance, soberness,  and  chastity  :"  not  to  covet  nor 
desire  other  men's  goods ;  but  to  learn  and  labour 
truly  to  get  mine  own  living,  and  to  do  my  duty 
in  that  state  of  life,  unto  which  it  shall  please 
God  to  call  me."  " 

'  First  Commandment.  '  Second.  *  Third 

» Fourth  "  Fifth. 

"Sixth    "Eighth.    "Ninth.    "Seventh.  "Tenth. 


Christian  Moralit}) 


107 


This  indeed  is  a  transformed  version  of  the  Ten 
Commandments.  But  very  few  of  our  communi- 
cants have  it  in  their  mind.  Even  the  questions 
in  some  books  of  self-examination  which  interpret 
the  Ten  Commandments  present  a  too  negative 
impression  of  Christian  duty.  Thus  I  cannot  but 
wish  that  the  Ten  Commandments  might  be 
pubUcly  recited  in  church  only  occasionally,  and 
then  with  their  properly  Christian  interpretation, 
while  some  more  easily  intelligible  summary  of 
Christian  morals  "  were  in  the  minds  and  memo- 
ries of  all  our  members. 

THE  AUTHORITY  OF  THE  CHURCH 

I  began  by  speaking  of  what  our  Lord  assumed 
— He  assumed  the  State  and  the  authority  of  the 
State.  Speaking  as  an  Israelite  He  assumed  the 
legislation  of  the  Law  and  the  social  teaching  of 
the  prophets.  But  if  the  Jewish  State  had  con- 
tinued in  being  and  had  accepted  the  teaching  of 
Christ  He  would  have  infused  into  the  old  legisla- 
tion and  the  old  moral  teaching  a  new  spirit, 

"  The  summary  in  the  Catechism  would  probably  suflSce  if 
the  statement  of  the  duty  of  subordinates  to  superiors  were 
there  balanced  by  an  equally  simple  statement  of  the  corre- 
sponding duties  of  those  in  any  kind  of  authority  or  position 
of  advantage.  As  it  stands  we  cannot  deny  that  it  produces 
a  feeling  of  unfairness.  A  reference  to  Murray's  Dictionary 
will  show  that  "betters"  cannot  be  interpreted  to  mean 
"those  better  than  ourselves." 


108 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


which  would  have  profoundly  modified  it.  As 
things  actually  happened  the  Jewish  people 
rejected  Christ,  and  the  Christian  church  started 
on  its  career  wholly  divorced  from  the  nation  of 
its  origin ;  and  for  some  centuries  of  its  life  in  the 
Roman  Empire  it  was  almost  wholly  debarred 
from  political  action.  Its  only  concern  was  with 
the  moral  discipline  of  its  own  members.  But  so 
soon  as  the  church  in  any  city  or  nation  rises  to  a 
position  of  political  influence  there  must  arise  a 
new  conception  of  Christian  civic  duty.  Of  this 
important  aspect  of  Christian  ethics  I  shall  have 
to  speak  in  a  later  chapter.  But  we  cannot  think 
rightly  about  Christian  morality  at  all  without 
bringing  into  view  the  social  discipline  which  the 
church  was  intended  to  exercise,  and  did  exercise 
from  the  first,  over  its  own  members.  Except  in 
the  single  matter  of  marriage,  on  which  our  Lord 
appears  to  have  laid  down  a  law,"  He  abstained 
from  anything  like  legislation  for  His  church. 
He  expressed  in  His  teaching  extraordinarily 
luminous  moral  ideas  and  ideals  of  duty.  But  He 
left  it  to  His  church  to  apply  these  ideals  and  ideas 
in  a  system  of  moral  discipline,  and  He  gave  to 
the  church  a  divine  authority  to  exercise  this 
discipline.  There  was  not  in  the  church  from  its 
beginning  any  doubt  about  this. 

"  1  Cor.  vii.  10,  "Not  I,  but  the  Lord."  He  speaks,  how- 
ever, as  one  restoring  not  originating  a  law. 


Christian  Morality 


109 


Thus  the  New  Testament  presents  us  with  a 
picture,  which  later  church  history  only  elabo- 
rates, of  a  corporate  body  legislating  for  its 
members  with  a  divine  sanction.  The  normal 
Christian  is  a  man  under  authority — the  authority 
of  the  body  he  belongs  to.  In  his  whole  life  he 
ought  to  feel  this  corporate  authority,  and  he 
ought  to  recognize  in  detail  "the  precepts  of  the 
church."  We  know  the  causes  which  brought 
about  the  great  rebellion  against  church  authority 
which  is  called  the  Reformation.  Over  parts 
of  Europe  the  church  of  the  papal  obedience 
reasserted  its  sway,  and  a  much  stricter  discipline 
was  inaugurated.  The  stricter  discipline  was  in 
theological  and  ecclesiastical  matters  rather  than 
in  morality.  Still,  the  individual  Churchman 
knew  that  he  must  obey  the  precepts  of  the 
church.  With  us  the  unhappy  fusion  of  Church 
and  State  brought  about  a  situation  in  which  the 
church  was  hardly  recognized  as  having  any 
authority  apart  from  the  State.  And  now  that 
the  State  has  ceased  to  act  as  the  guardian  of  a 
distinctively  Christian  morality  the  individual 
Churchman  is  allowed  to  remain  with  hardly  any 
consciousness  of  being  under  obedience  to  a  body 
which  represents  Christ.  I  would  give  only  two 
examples  of  this  startling  deficiency. 

The  mediaeval  church  possessed  a  noble  and 
carefully  formulated  tradition  of  social  and  polit- 


110 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


ical  ethics  —  for  instance,  a  really  Christian 
doctrine  of  property,  limiting  the  rights  of 
property  by  considerations  of  the  general  welfare 
and  of  the  authority  of  God.  But  a  philosophy  of 
individual  self-interest  arose  and  became  domi- 
nant, especially  in  England.  It  mastered  the 
legislature  ;  and  our  laws  came  to  care  more  about 
the  rights  of  property  than  the  rights  of  persons, 
and  to  push  the  rights  of  property  to  such  a  point 
as  admitted  of  little  regard  being  paid  to  the 
interests  of  the  community,  and  especially  of  its 
less  fortunate  members — those  "who  have  not." 
And,  in  spite  of  the  prevalence  of  this  frankly 
unchristian  theory  and  practice,  the  church  cor- 
porately  was  silent.  Christians  were  at  liberty  to 
make  money  out  of  slum-dwellings,  degrading  to 
their  inhabitants;  or  to  sweat  their  workpeople; 
or  to  invest  their  capital  in  commercial  enterprises 
without  any  regard  to  the  good  of  mankind — 
without  regard  to  any  other  consideration  except 
the  return  they  would  get  for  their  money:  and 
all  this  in  flat  defiance  of  Christian  principles, 
without  the  church  ever  seriously  warning  them 
that  they  were  guilty  of  something  like  a  moral 
apostasy. 

I  must  give  one  other  example.  A  generation 
ago  it  began  to  be  known  that  by  the  use  of  cer- 
tain expedients  it  was  possible  and  even  easy  for 
men  and  women  to  gratify  their  sexual  appetites 


Christian  Moralit]) 


111 


without  the  trouble,  expense,  and  pain  involved 
in  the  procreation  of  children.  The  general  ver- 
dict of  the  Christian  conscience,  where  it  is  at 
pains  to  be  instructed,  condemns  such  practices 
as  a  degradation  of  marriage  and  of  the  sexual 
relation,  severing  its  inherent  pleasure  from  the 
conditions  which  ennoble  and  restrain  it.  The 
Roman  Catholic  church  and  the  Jewish  commu- 
nity made  their  condemnation  of  these  practices 
more  or  less  effective,  and  within  the  limits  of 
their  influence  they  were  kept  in  restraint.  But 
outside  these  communions  they  have  been  allowed 
to  gain  a  fearful  prevalence  without  any  organ- 
ized or  public  expression  of  the  judgment  of  the 
church. 

These  are  instances  of  a  very  serious  neglect. 
The  conscience  of  a  man  is  not  the  voice  of  God, 
but  a  faculty  which  enables  him  to  keep  in  touch 
with  God's  moral  will,  as  his  reason  enables  him 
to  keep  in  touch  with  truth.  Both,  if  they  are  to 
be  effective,  need  education.  Among  the  means 
of  educating  the  conscience  of  Christians  none 
should  be  more  obvious  than  the  voice  of  the 
church.  A  Christian  is  meant  to  live  in  the  light 
of  the  judgment  of  the  divine  society  of  which 
he  is  a  member.  And  the  church  which  neglects 
to  enlighten  and  guide  and  warn  its  members  on 
moral  questions  neglects  a  vital  part  of  its  duty. 

Even  in  minor  matters  it  is  necessary  and 


1  1 2  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


wholesome  that  members  of  the  church  should 
feel  their  obligation  to  observe  the  precepts  of  the 
church.  It  keeps  them  in  mind  of  their  member- 
ship, it  strengthens  their  spirit  of  discipline ;  and 
if  the  precepts  are  sound  it  keeps  them  in  the 
right  way.  Whether  the  precepts  of  the  Roman 
Church  are  wholly  good  I  need  not  discuss ;  at 
least  we  recognize  what  an  advantage  it  is  to  a 
Roman  Catholic  that  he  knows,  as  we  say,  "ex- 
actly what  he  has  got  to  do."  And  it  is  the 
intention  of  the  Church  of  England  that  we 
should  live  under  like  precepts.  Thus — (1)  the 
duty  of  public  worship,  especially  on  Sundays  and 
other  holy  days ;  (2)  the  duty  of  hearing  and  read- 
ing Holy  Scripture ;  (3)  the  duty  of  communicat- 
ing at  least  three  times  a  year;  (4)  the  duty  of 
almsgiving  and  of  paying  church  dues;  (5)  the 
duty  of  not  marrying  within  the  prohibited 
degrees;  (6)  the  duty  of  keeping  the  fast  and 
feast  days  of  the  church;  (7)  the  duty  of  making 
one's  will — are  duties  which  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land in  its  Prayer  Book  and  canons  lays  upon  its 
members."  Some  of  us  would  desire  a  revision  of 
these  rules,  at  least  so  as  to  make  attendance  at 
the  Lord's  own  service  the  normal  obligation  of 

Upon  its  clergy  only  it  lays  the  duty  of  the  daily  recita- 
tion of  Morning  and  Evening  Prayer  in  public  or  private. 
It  would  have  made  a  vast  difference  if  this  had  never  been 
forgotten. 


Christian  Moralit\f 


113 


the  Lord's  Day.  But,  be  the  rules  never  so  good, 
they  fail  of  their  object  unless  they  are  practically 
understood  of  all,  and  unless  the  church  makes  it 
evident  that  it  intends  they  should  be  observed. 
Without  such  precepts  of  the  church,  universally 
known  and  loyally  accepted  within  our  member- 
ship, we  shall  never  have  anything  approaching 
to  a  healthy  churchmanship ;  and  such  practical 
recognition  of  membership  is  an  important  part 
of  the  moral  discipline  of  Christianity. 

THE  EVANGELICAL  COUNSELS 

Finally,  a  word  must  be  said  about  the  "coun- 
sels" or  special  vocations  for  some,  as  well  as 
about  the  moral  duties  of  all.  Purity,  self-control, 
charity,  self-sacrifice,  humility — these  and  the 
like  virtues  are  incumbent  upon  all.  But  some, 
not  all,  our  Lord  called  to  be  apostles  and  evan- 
gelists, pastors  and  missionaries,  and  He  gave 
them  special  injunctions  to  secure  their  entire 
detachment  from  worldly  cares.  Further  he  set 
before  some,  not  all,  the  counsel  of  voluntary 
poverty :  "Go  and  sell  all  that  thou  hast,  and  come 
and  follow  me."  And  He  also  suggested  as  a 
vocation  for  some,  not  for  all,  deliberate  virginity. 
These  last  calls,  welcomed  and  acted  upon,  have 
been  the  foundation  of  what  is  specially  called  the 
"religious  state."  And  because  these  ascetic  voca- 


114 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


tions  pursued  individually  lead  to  all  kinds  of 
perilous  eccentricities  the  church  has  joined  to 
the  vocations  of  poverty  and  chastity  the  voca- 
tion of  obedience  to  a  superior  and  a  common 
rule,  in  order  to  keep  the  Religious  State  sane 
and  healthy. 

Thus  the  church  has  honoured  the  special  voca- 
tion of  those  who  consecrate  their  lives  under  the 
three  vows  of  poverty,  chastity,  and  obedience; 
and  there  are  very  few  things  in  the  Church  of 
England  for  which  we  need  more  heartily  to  give 
thanks  than  for  the  revival  amongst  us  of  this 
special  vocation,  both  among  men  and  women. 
There  is  a  very  difficult  theological  question 
about  the  "merit"  of  "works  of  supererogation" — 
that  is,  good  works,  such  as  obedience  to  these 
special  calls,  which  are  over  and  above  what  is 
required  of  every  one.  But  I  do  not  propose  to 
discuss  this  subject  here.  On  the  one  hand,  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  it  is  very  difficult  to 
eliminate  the  distinction  between  ordinary  re- 
quirements and  special  merits.  It  is  very  difficult 
to  say  that  any  one  sins  by  refusing  a  special  call 
as  he  would  sin  by  refusing  a  universal  duty.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  New 
Testament,  especially  our  Lord's  words  and  S. 
Paul's,  are  singularly  discouraging  to  the  idea  of 
acquiring  merit;  and,  to  whatever  theological 
system  they  have  belonged,  we  may  rejoice  that 


Christian  Moralit}) 


115 


the  heroic  saints  have,  for  the  most  part,  been 
singularly  averse  to  claiming  merit  for  them- 
selves. Meanwhile  this  at  least  is  certain.  No 
church  can  strike  the  imagination  of  men,  or  enlist 
their  whole  loyalty,  unless  it  affords  full  scope 
for  the  exercise  of  the  more  heroic  kinds  of  sacri- 
fice, and  gives  to  such  sacrifice  frank  and 
corporate  honour. 

We  have  at  this  moment  a  grand  opportunity 
for  proclaiming  afresh  the  true  spirit  of  Christian 
morality,  the  gospel  of  human  life.  The  appalling 
strife  of  nations  which  is  drenching  in  blood  so 
large  a  part  of  the  world,  the  threatening  strife 
of  classes  and  many  other  symptoms  of  disease  in 
modern  life  have  produced  a  widespread  disillu- 
sionment as  to  the  possibilities  of  any  civilization 
which  is  based  on  competitive  selfishness,  whether 
it  be  the  selfishness  of  individuals,  of  classes,  or 
of  nations.  Men  are  yearning  for  some  adequate 
and  stable  basis  of  human  fellowship.  And  it  is 
this  that  Christianity  offers  them.  Its  ethics  are 
frankly  supernatural :  for  it  is  only  by  help  of 
motives  and  forces  drawn  from  beyond  the  world 
that  men  can  subdue  their  selfish  lusts  and 
appetites  and  become  fit  for  fellowship.  But 
fellowship  in  the  Spirit  of  God  is  what  Christ 
offers  to  men.  And  while  He  accepts  as  a  legiti- 
mate part  of  human  nature  the  desire  for  personal 
happiness,  and  frankly  bids  men  strive  for  eternal 


116 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


rewards,  He  proclaims  deliberate  self-sacrifice  to 
be  the  only  road  to  self-realization,  and  the  only 
instrument  of  human  redemption. 


CHAPTER  VII 


Prajier 

ACCORDING  to  the  teaching  of  our  Lord  and 
of  the  New  Testament  generally  prayer  is  to 
be  one  of  the  chief  occupations  of  men.  To  a 
certain  extent  indeed  it  has  been  so  all  the  world 
over.  All  the  world  over  man  appears  as  a  being 
moving  out  towards  nature  to  appropriate  its 
resources — and  therein  lies  the  history  of  civiliza- 
tion ;  moving  out  again  towards  his  fellow  men  to 
adjust  his  relations  with  them — and  therein  lies 
the  history  of  society ;  but  also  as  a  being  moving 
out  towards  the  unseen,  towards  God  or  gods, 
however  ignorantly  conceived — and  therein  lies 
the  history  of  religion.  Of  this  religious  develop- 
ment of  man  the  culminating  point  is  to  be  found 
in  Christ.  In  Him,  as  the  church  believes,  is  to  be 
found  the  relation  of  man  to  God  perfected  in 
sonship.  In  Him,  therefore,  is  to  be  found  the 
perfection  of  prayer.  And  no  one  can  read  the 
Gospels  without  seeing  that  it  is  our  Lord's  inten- 
tion to  surround  Himself  with  men  of  prayer.  No 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


one,  moreover,  can  read  the  Epistles  without  see- 
ing how  diligently  the  first  Christians  set  them- 
selves to  the  work  of  prayer. 

Our  Lord  may  be  said  to  have  taught  His 
disciples  two  great  lessons  with  regard  to  prayer. 
First,  that  prayer  is  efficacious ;  that  is,  that  ask- 
ing God,  persistently  and  patiently,  is  one  chief 
means  of  obtaining  results.  Plainly  our  Lord  is 
interested  in,  and  would  have  us  reverence,  all 
kinds  of  practical  human  activity.  There  are 
multitudes  of  things  which  God  means  for  us  and 
for  the  world  that  will  never  be  ours  unless  we 
work  for  them.  But  also,  and  quite  as  truly,  there 
are  multitudes  of  things  which  God  means  for  us, 
and  through  us  for  our  brethren,  which  will  never 
be  ours  or  theirs  unless  we  pray  for  them.  Prayer 
produces  results.  Prayer  accomplishes  on  the 
earth  what  nothing  else  can  accomplish.  "Ask, 
and  ye  shall  receive."  As  "the  Lord's  brother" 
says,  "Ye  have  not  because  ye  ask  not."  '  Thus 
our  Lord  would  have  His  disciples  possessed  by 
an  unhesitating  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer. 
And  we  may  lay  it  to  heart  that,  however  great 
the  intellectual  difficulties  of  conceiving  the  inter- 
action of  the  divine  and  human  wills,  there  is  no 
intellectual  difficulty  whatever  about  the  efficacy 
of  prayer  which  does  not  apply  equally  to  the 
efficacy  of  work.  In  both  directions  we  are  bound 
"  S.  James  iv.  2. 


Pra\)er 


119 


to  believe  that  the  practical  results  depend  upon 
our  own  wills. 

But  when  His  disciples  had  taken  in  this  lesson, 
there  was  another  which  they  had  to  learn,  per- 
haps more  difficult — that  is,  that  the  efficacy  of 
prayer  depends  upon  our  learning  to  desire  and 
ask  what  it  is  the  will  of  God  to  give.  Prayer  is 
not  to  be  an  attempt  to  persuade  God  to  do  what 
He  had  not  intended  to  do.  If  we  could  succeed 
in  doing  that,  it  would  be  to  our  loss.  Prayer  is 
a  method  of  liberating  the  hand  of  God  to  do  what 
He  would  do,  but  cannot  do  unless  we  correspond 
with  His  will.  Intelligent  correspondence  with 
the  purpose  of  God — that  is  the  spirit  of  effective 
work,  and  the  spirit  of  all  science ;  and  that  is  the 
spirit  of  effective  prayer.  It  is  marvellous  how 
many  of  the  objections  urged  against  the  reason- 
ableness of  praying  fall  to  the  ground  at  once 
when  this  principle  is  really  grasped.  And  inas- 
much as  in  our  Lord  we  really  see  the  mind  of 
God  brought  near  and  made  intelligible  to  us,  so 
our  praying  becomes  effective  in  proportion  as 
we  learn  to  make  Christ's  mind  our  mind,  and 
His  desires  our  desires.  This  is  what  I  described 
as  the  second  lesson  which  our  Lord  set  Himself 
to  teach  His  disciples  about  prayer:  "If  ye  abide 
in  me  and  my  words  abide  in  you,  ye  shall  ask 
what  ye  will  and  it  shall  be  done  unto  you." 
"Whatsoever  ye  shall  ask  the  Father  in  my  name. 


1 20  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


he  will  give  it  you.  Hitherto  have  ye  asked  (so 
many  things  in  your  ow^n  name,  but)  nothing  in 
my  name."  ^ 

It  hardly  needs  saying  that  to  ask  in  Christ's 
name  means  something  quite  different  from  ad- 
ding the  words  "through  Jesus  Christ"  at  the  end 
of  our  prayers.  The  ambassador  goes  abroad  "in 
the  name"  of  king  and  country,  the  commercial 
traveller  travels  "in  the  name"  of  his  firm,  because 
he  goes  to  express  not  his  own  intentions  and 
wishes,  but  the  intentions  and  wishes  of  the 
greater  power  behind  him  which  he  represents. 
That  is  what  we  mean  by  praying  in  the  name  of 
Christ.  The  same  idea  is  really  implied  in  the 
phrase  "Whatsoever  ye  pray  and  ask,  believe  that 
ye  have  received  it,  and  ye  shall  have  it" :  for  we 
cannot  really  ask  with  this  confident  expectation 
unless  we  know  in  sufficient  measure  the  mind  of 
God  and  our  own  mind  is  identified  with  it. 

But  nowhere  is  the  idea  so  effectively  expressed 
as  in  the  Lord's  Prayer,  which,  indeed,  is  not  one 
prayer  among  many,  but  the  mould  and  pattern 
of  all  praying.  There — in  the  order  no  less  than 
the  content  of  the  petitions — is  the  secret  of 
prayer  in  the  name  of  Christ.  It  begins  with 
bidding  us  lay  aside  our  selfishness.  It  is  "our 
Father,"  not  "my  Father,"  whom  I  am  to  ap- 
proach— the  impartial  Father  with  whom  is  no 
'  S.  John  XV.  7,  16;  xvi.  23,  24,  26. 


Pra])er 


121 


respect  of  persons :  "which  art  in  heaven,"  whose 
ways  are  higher  than  our  ways  and  His  thoughts 
than  our  thoughts,  even  as  the  heaven  is  higher 
than  the  earth,  and  who  yet  bends  Himself  to  the 
heart  of  every  one  of  His  children.  "Hallowed  be 
Thy  name."  Here  we  are  required  at  once  to  do 
what  is  most  difficult  to  flesh  and  blood,  to  exalt 
God's  honour  above  man's  need  into  the  first  place 
in  our  desires.  "Thy  kingdom  come.  Thy  will  be 
done."  We  are  to  merge  our  little  schemes  in 
God's  great  purpose,  and  bend  our  stubborn  wills 
into  harmony  with  His.  "In  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven." '  We  are  bidden  to  open  our  imagina- 
tion to  the  great  angelic  world  of  free  spirits  who 
are  alwa3'S  honouring  God  with  an  incessant 
adoration,  amongst  whom  the  order  of  the  divine 
kingdom  is  perfectly  realized,  and  who  have  no 
other  will  than  God's.  Then,  only  then,  when  we 
have  exalted  God's  honour  above  our  need,  and 
merged  our  plans  in  His,  and  bent  our  wills  to 
His,  and  opened  our  imagination  to  the  vastness 
of  the  spiritual  world — only  then  are  we  allowed 
to  express  our  desires  for  personal  and  temporal 
blessings,  and  then  so  restrictedly :  not  "Give  me 
to-day  what  I  should  so  much  wish  to  have,"  but 

'  This,  in  all  probability,  is  intended  to  refer  to  all  the 
three  previous  clauses — "Hallowed  be  Thy  name,"  as  in 
heaven  so  on  earth;  "Thy  kingdom  come,"  as  in  heaven  so 
on  earth;  "Thy  will  be  done"  as  in  heaven  so  on  earth. 


122 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


"Give  us"  one  and  all  alike  "to-day  our  bread  for 
the  coming  day" — enough  to  keep  us  in  life  and 
activity.  And,  because  we  cannot  do  God's  work 
unless  we  are  in  His  peace,  therefore  "Forgive  us 
our  trespasses" ;  and  that  again,  not  anyhow,  but 
according  to  the  fixed  law  by  which  God  deals 
with  us  as  we  deal  with  our  fellow  men,  "as  we 
have  forgiven  them  that  trespass  against  us." 
And  because  we  are  weak  and  frail,  "Lead  us  not 
into  temptation  (or  trial),  but  deliver  us  from  the 
evil  one." 

That  is  a  marvellous  prayer.  A  child  can 
understand  every  word  of  it.  But  it  requires  a 
saint  to  pray  it  perfectly.  It  requires  a  converted 
man  to  pray  it  sincerely  at  all.  And  it  is  not  an 
exaggeration  to  say  that  it  contains  in  itself  the 
philosophy  of  man's  right  relation  to  the  Supreme 
Will  and  to  the  whole  order  of  nature — the 
philosophy  of  correspondence,  which  so  many 
centuries  later  was  expressed,  with  reference  to 
the  activity  of  the  natural  sciences,  in  the  famous 
aphorism  of  Francis  Bacon — "Nature  can  only  be 
controlled  by  being  obeyed."  The  true  liberation 
of  human  faculties,  that  is,  lies  in  the  abandon- 
ment of  all  wilfulness,  all  foolish  imperiousness ; 
it  lies  in  perfect  submission  of  will  to  the  divine 
order;  and  this  perfect  submission,  so  far  from 
leading  to  quietism  or  apathy,  is  to  stimulate 
to  vigorous  correspondence  the  man  who  now 


Prater 


123 


knows  himself  to  be  a  fellow  worker  with  God. 

How  many  men  during  this  war,  who  had  long 
given  up  praying,  have  flung  themselves  on  their 
knees  and  prayed,  "O  merciful  God,  I  pray  Thee 
to  keep  my  Tom  safe !"  Truly  it  is  a  most  wel- 
come return  to  prayer:  and  certainly  we  should 
never  cease  to  pray  thus  fervently  and  thus  par- 
ticularly for  the  things  that  we  particularly  need. 
Still,  this  is  the  prayer  of  nature,  and  a  great 
interval  separates  it  from  the  prayer  of  enlight- 
ened sonship,  the  prayer  in  which  our  personal 
wants  are  deliberately  taken  up  into  the  large 
scope  of  the  Lord's  Prayer. 

People  often  ask — May  we  pray  for  rain?  May 
we  pray  for  this  and  that?  I  fancy  the  answer  is 
fairly  simple.  There  is  one  prayer  which  is  one 
day  going  to  receive  its  perfect  answer.  That  is 
the  prayer  of  Christ.  In  that  we  are  called  to 
share.  We  may  pray  with  perfect  confidence  for 
what  we  know  to  be  included  in  that  prayer.  We 
cannot  pray  at  all  for  what  we  know  not  to  be 
God's  will,  as  that  we  should  sin  and  not  be  pun- 
ished, or  that  those  we  love  should  be  blessed 
without  being  converted.  But  there  is  a  vast 
middle  region  of  uncertainty,  a  region  in  which 
we  do  not  really  know  what  God's  will  is :  and  in 
all  this  vast  region  we  should  let  God  know  our 
desires  and  wishes,  confessing  our  blindness,  and 
imitating  the  wonderful  humility  of  our  Lord 


124 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


Himself.  For  He  prayed  "Father,  if  it  be  possible, 
let  this  cup  pass  from  me ;  nevertheless,  not  my 
will  but  thine  be  done" ;  and  was  after  all  truly 
content  not  to  be  spared,  not  to  have  His  natural 
human  desire  granted. 

On  the  basis  of  this  great  principle  of  prayer, 
it  is  worth  while  to  say  something  about  (1)  the 
different  kinds  of  prayer,  and  (2)  the  chief  aids 
to  prayer. 

1.  We  accept  it  as  a  natural  principle  that  we 
should  begin  the  day  with  prayer.  "O  Lord,  in 
the  morning  shalt  Thou  hear  my  voice:  in  the 
morning  will  I  order  my  prayer  unto  Thee"  * — 
that  is,  I  will  set  out  in  order  before  the  face  of 
God  the  day  that  is  coming,  and  "will  look  out" 
for  an  answer.  It  is  natural  also  to  end  the  day 
with  prayer — thanksgiving,  and  self-examination, 
and  confession,  and  self-commendation  to  God. 
Such  prayer,  the  first  and  last  thing  each  day,  is 
the  most  elementary  provision  for  keeping  our 
life  in  the  way  of  God.  As  the  man  grows  in  the 
practice  of  prayer,  he  will  come  nearer  to  the 
"seven  times  a  day  will  I  praise  Thee."  But  from 
the  beginning  our  prayer  must  not  be  selfish. 
There  must  be  intercession,  at  whatever  hour  is 
most  convenient.  And  because  a  reasonably 
open-minded  Christian  has  many  objects  to  pray 
for  outside  his  own  family — as  the  whole  of 
•  Ps.  V.  3. 


Prater 


125 


Christendom,  the  evangelization  of  the  world,  the 
Church  in  England,  the  clergy,  his  own  parish, 
his  own  profession,  school,  and  college,  the 
various  classes  in  society,  the  tempted  and  suffer- 
ing and  sick — so  he  will  have  some  method  of 
praying  by  which  he  will  on  each  day  in  the  week 
make  his  intercession  for  some  one  or  more  of 
these  manifold  districts  in  the  kingdom  of  God. 
Also  he  will  constantly  remember  that,  besides 
asking,  his  devotion  to  God  should  take  the  form 
of  adoration  and  quiet  repose  upon  God,  and  the 
deliberate  expression  of  thankfulness  and  praise. 

At  the  altar  the  Christian  should  find  the  centre 
of  his  life  of  devotion.  There  in  the  service  of 
Holy  Communion  are  all  kinds  of  prayer — peni- 
tence, and  devout  reception  of  the  word  of  God, 
and  profession  of  faith,  and  intercession,  and 
adoration  of  God  in  heaven,  and  thanksgiving  or 
eucharist,  and  the  welcome  of  God  incarnate 
brought  down  to  earth,  amongst  His  worshipping 
people,  that  they  may  adore  "the  Lamb  of  God 
which  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world,"  and 
bring  all  their  prayers  under  the  shelter  of  His 
sacrifice.  There,  as  the  climax  of  all,  they  receive 
Him  into  themselves,  and  make  to  God  the  glad 
return  of  their  own  lives  and  wills,  being  joined 
in  one  with  the  sacrifice  of  their  Lord.  And  all 
the  moods  of  this  divine  worship  are  meant  to 
spread  from  the  centre  of  this  great  common 


126 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


action  over  all  the  parts  of  human  life.  Thus  no 
household,  which  aspires  to  become  Christian, 
should  be  without  some  sort  of  family  prayers  to 
consecrate  the  home.  But  also  praying  should 
become  the  familiar  expression  of  the  soul  to  God, 
which  needs  no  special  solitude  or  fixed  occasion 
or  attitude  of  body,  but  can  speak  to  God  any- 
where in  the  vacant  spaces  of  a  busy  life. 

2.  We  all  find  prayer  very  difficult.  It  is  diffi- 
cult because  it  is  the  highest  occupation  of  man, 
and  not  therefore  to  be  easily  learned.  "No  man 
can  hope  to  make  progress  in  prayer  who  does 
not  set  about  it  as  a  great  work."  Thus  we  all 
suffer  from  wandering  thoughts.  But  I  think  the 
following  hints  may  be  useful  for  the  beginner. 
(1)  Concentration  in  prayer  is  greatly  helped  if 
we  study  concentration  in  all  kinds  of  work.  One 
who  will  learn  forcibly  to  concentrate  himself  on 
an  unwelcome  piece  of  work  will  much  more 
easily  learn  to  concentrate  on  prayer.  (2)  The 
beginning  of  our  prayer  is  specially  important, 
whether  public  or  private.  We  should  begin  by 
putting  ourselves  with  all  possible  solemnity  and 
recollection  into  the  presence  of  God,  in  the  name 
ol  Christ  and  in  the  power  of  the  Spirit.  (3)  We 
should  intermingle  in  prayer  the  "practice  of 
quiet."  We  should  learn  to  abide  silent  and  ador- 
ing in  God's  presence.  (4)  We  should  vary  our 
attitude.     Standing  is  quite  as  recognized  an 


Prayer 


127 


attitude  for  prayer  as  kneeling.  (5)  We  should 
never  pray  as  if  we  were  alone,  or  as  if  we  were 
initiating  a  new  action.  There  is  one  prayer 
which  is  always  going  on — it  is  the  prayer  of 
Christ  our  high  priest  and  the  intercession  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  who  dwells  in  the  church  which  is 
Christ's  body,  and  joins  in  one  and  interprets  all 
the  prayers  of  all  His  members. 

Thus  whenever  we  begin  to  pray  we  should 
remember  this.  There  is  one  prayer  which  is 
always  being  prayed — the  prayer  of  the  great 
High  Priest  and  of  all  His  people,  joined  together 
in  His  Spirit.  Mary  is  praying,  and  Peter  and 
Paul  and  John,  and  all  the  blessed  dead,  and  all 
the  living  all  the  world  over.  Above  me  and 
around  me  is  this  mighty  prayer,  which  is  one 
day  going  to  be  fully  answered.  That  will  be  the 
day  of  God.  Meanwhile  it  never  ceases;  and 
every  feeble  prayer  of  mine  is  joined  to  that  great 
stream,  which  fills  up  all  my  silences,  and  supplies 
all  the  gaps  of  my  wandering  thoughts,  and  inter- 
prets and  perfects  all  my  ignorant  and  imperfect 
supplications. 

May  God,  who  has  given  us  "a  hearty  desire  to 
pray,"  and  who  is  "able  to  do  more  than  either  we 
desire  or  deserve,"  who  also  knows  our  weakness 
and  ignorance  and  wilfulness,  so  discipline  and 
guide  and  encourage  us  as  that  we  may  persevere 
and  make  good  progress  along  the  road  of  prayer : 


128 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


and  may  He  at  last  crown  our  experience  with  this 
assurance — "Praised  be  the  Lord  who  hath  not 
cast  out  my  prayer,  nor  turned  His  mercy  from 
me." 


CHAPTER  VIII 


The  Bible — its  truth,  its  inspiration,  and  its  use 

THERE  is  no  doubt  that  the  aim  of  the  refor- 
mers of  the  sixteenth  century,  including  such 
moderate  men  as  Colet  and  Erasmus,  was  to  make 
the  Christian  religion  scriptural  again — to  bring 
back  its  theology  to  the  standard  of  Holy  Scrip- 
ture, and  to  familiarize  with  Scripture  the  minds 
of  all  its  members.  This  would  have  been  a  return 
to  the  earliest  tradition  and  practice;  for  the 
Church  literature  of  the  first  four  or  five  cen- 
turies is  saturated  in  Scripture.  There  was  the 
court  of  constant  reference  alike  for  its  theology 
and  its  practical  life.  Thence  was  the  staple  of  its 
preaching.  Though  there  were,  of  course,  no 
printed  books,  manuscript  books  were  very  cheap  ; 
and  Christians  were  exhorted  and  expected  to  buy 
and  read  the  Scriptures  for  themselves.  They  are 
as  necessary  to  the  Christian  artisan,  says  Chrys- 
ostom,  as  the  tools  of  his  trade. 

It  was  to  this  tradition,  then,  that  the  reformers 
sought  to  recall  us ;  and  with  a  large  measure  of 
success.  The  Bible  has  been  the  strength  of  Eng- 


130 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


lish  religion,  both  of  our  learned  divinity  and  of 
our  popular  devotion,  and  has  largely  moulded 
our  national  character.  But  our  faith  in  the  Bible 
had  taken  the  form  of  a  belief  in  the  infallibility 
of  all  its  statements;  and  of  late  years  this  has 
received  a  rude  shock.  It  is  not  only  that  science 
seems  to  make  it  impossible  to  believe  that  the 
Bible  gives  us  an  accurate  account  of  the  origin 
of  the  world  and  of  our  race ;  it  is  not  only  that 
anthropology  seems  to  assimilate  the  traditions 
and  religious  rites  of  Israel  to  those  of  other 
nations ;  it  is  not  only  that  much  which  had  been 
believed  to  be  historical  in  the  Old  Testament  now 
seems  to  be  legendary ;  but  criticism  has  also 
assailed  and  attempts  to  dissolve  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  the  figure  of  the  Redeemer  Himself. 
This  destructive  criticism  has  had  its  chief  origin 
and  home  in  Germany,  but  it  has  its  distinguished 
exponents  in  France  and  in  England  also.  And 
many  of  our  learned  men,  even  clergymen  and 
professors  of  theology,  have  published  conclu- 
sions about  the  New  Testament  which  seem  to 
simple  people  to  destroy  the  foundation  of  our 
religion,  and  to  plunge  their  minds  into  uncer- 
tainty and  confusion.  Thus  it  is  that  English 
popular  religion,  largely  identified  with  belief  in 
the  infallibility  of  the  Bible,  has  received  a  great 
shock.  It  is  commonly  supposed  that  "the  Bible 
has  been  proved  not  to  be  true." 


The  Bible 


131 


No  doubt  the  faith  of  Roman  Catholics  has  been 
less  affected  than  that  of  ourselves  or  of  the 
Protestant  world  generally ;  because  they  had 
practically  been  much  less  interested  in  the  Bible 
and  much  less  acquainted  with  it,  and  their  faith 
had  rested  almost  solely  on  the  infallibility  of 
the  church.  Now  all  intelligent  Christian  faith 
should  rest  upon  the  church,  and  not  merely  upon 
the  books  of  the  Bible;  and,  indeed,  it  should  put 
the  church  before  the  books;  because,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  church  existed  and  bore  witness  to  the 
faith  before  the  books  were  written.  The  earliest 
Christian  books — S.  Paul's  Epistles — are  them- 
selves the  best  proof  that  the  church  was  there 
before  them,  and  was  witnessing  to  the  faith. 
Any  one  who  reads  the  Epistles  can  see  that  what 
is  substantially  the  faith  of  the  Apostles'  Creed 
was  already  taken  for  granted  as  the  teaching  of 
the  apostles  and  the  faith  "once  for  all  delivered 
to  the  saints,"  before  any  of  the  books  of  the  New 
Testament  were  written. 

Nevertheless,  we  will  not  desert  the  way  of  the 
ancient  catholic  church  and  the  way  of  our  own 
tradition.  We  will  not  allow  the  Bible  to  be 
dethroned  or  ignored  or  neglected.  The  church 
has  given  us  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  as 
containing  in  its  most  authentic  and  inspired 
form  the  teaching  of  its  great  apostles,  and  has 
exhorted  us  to  enlighten  our  minds  and  to  pre- 


1  32  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


serve  the  purity  of  our  religion  by  constant 
reference  to  the  authority  of  these  scriptures,  and 
constant  familiarity  with  their  pages.  Any  ignor- 
ing or  neglecting  of  the  Bible  leads  assuredly  to 
the  deterioration  of  our  religious  tradition  and 
religious  life. 

THE  BOOKS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

Let  us  then  consider,  without  any  shrinking 
from  the  light  of  modern  knowledge,  how  things 
stand  to-day  with  these  Holy  Scriptures ;  and  let 
us  begin  with  the  epistles  of  the  New  Testament, 
because  amongst  them  are  the  earliest  written 
documents  of  our  religion. 

Well  then,  after  all  the  immense  and  minute 
attention,  much  of  it  markedly  hostile  attention, 
given  to  the  Epistles,  we  can  still  read  them  as  the 
church  has  given  them  to  us,  as  the  authentic 
writings  of  those  by  whom  they  profess  to  be 
written,  with  the  single,  not  very  material,  ex- 
ception of  the  Second  Epistle  of  S.  Peter.'  That 
epistle  is  edifying  indeed.   But  there  certainly  are 

'  I  do  not  think  that  the  ordinary  man  need  be  troubled 
about  the  authenticity  of  the  Pastoral  Epistles.  The  doubts 
seem  to  me  to  concern  their  style  rather  than  their  matter. 
It  is  very  likely  that  S.  Paul  was  more  helped  by  some  one 
else  in  writing  them  than  in  the  case  of  his  other  epistles. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  anonymous.  But  it  was 
written  by  some  one  of  high  standing  in  the  church  before 
the  destruction  of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem. 


The  Bible 


133 


strong  reasons  for  doubting  whether  it  was  writ- 
ten by  Simon  Peter  the  apostle.  As  for  the  rest, 
the  authenticity  of  no  one  of  them  has  been  dis- 
proved or  seriously  shaken :  and  the  tendency  of 
critical  inquiry  has  been  markedly  in  the  con- 
servative direction. 

Side  by  side  with  these  epistles  you  will  read 
the  history  of  the  church  in  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles.  No  triumph  of  an  old  tradition  in  the 
world  of  free  criticism  is  so  marked  as  the  triumph 
of  the  church  tradition  about  the  third  Gospel  and 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  After  the  most  pro- 
longed assaults,  and  the  despair  of  many  of  their 
faint-hearted  friends,  these  two  volumes  have 
been,  by  linguistic  and  historical  argument, 
triumphantly  vindicated  as  the  trustworthy  work 
of  Luke,  the  beloved  physician,  the  companion  of 
S.  Paul.  The  Church  could  not  have  had  a  better 
recorder  of  the  acts  of  the  apostles.  He  had  been 
the  personal  companion  of  the  leading  apostle ; 
and  for  the  earlier  period,  before  he  personally 
came  upon  the  scene,  he  had  unrivalled  opportuni- 
ties for  gathering  information  from  those  who 
were  intimately  concerned  in  the  earlier  scenes, 
such  as  Philip  the  Evangelist,  one  of  the  seven, 
with  whom  in  S.  Paul's  company  he  stayed  at 
Caesarea,'  and  doubtless  many  others.  So  you 
will  read  the  Acts — surely  a  fascinating  book — 
'  Acts  xxi.  8. 


134 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


and  it  will  reinforce  the  impressions  of  the 
apostolic  epistles. 

We  are  often  told  that  the  faith  of  the  church, 
as  it  is  represented  in  the  Epistles,  is  no  doubt  in 
substance  the  faith  of  the  later  catholic  church ; 
but  that  it  is  an  accretion  upon  the  earlier  faith, 
and  the  faith  of  the  earliest  disciples  is  better 
represented  in  the  first  three  (called  the  Synoptic) 
Gospels.  But  in  truth  the  Synoptic  Gospels  only 
represent  a  faith  in  process  of  being  formed. 
They  are  not  really  intelligible  apart  from  what 
they  led  up  to.  They  only  give  the  account  of 
how  the  faith  which  is  represented  in  the  Epistles 
really  grew. 

This  makes  it  of  the  greatest  importance  for 
any  intelligent  study  of  the  New  Testament  that 
we  should  realize  that  the  Gospels  were  not  the 
first  of  the  books.  The  church,  after  Pentecost, 
was  worshipping  the  living  and  glorified  Christ, 
was  living  with  thankfulness  and  courage  in  the 
fellowship  of  His  Spirit,  was  celebrating  His 
atoning  death  and  glorious  resurrection,  and  was 
confessing  the  threefold  name  of  the  Father,  the 
Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  is  represented  in  the 
Epistles.  And  in  this  atmosphere  questions  and 
anxieties  and  conflicts  arose,  and  the  apostles 
sought  to  deal  with  the  difficulties,  as  appears  in 
the  Epistles,  before  ever  the  church  possessed 
written  Gospels.   But  the  Twelve  can  never  have 


The  Bible 


135 


ceased  to  brood  on  their  earlier  experiences ;  and, 
from  the  beginning,  they  must  have  imparted 
their  memories  to  others,  and  the  disciples  must 
have  learned  about  the  earthly  life  of  Him  whom 
they  now  worshipped  as  their  Saviour  and  Lord. 
Then  there  would  have  been,  doubtless,  as  S. 
Luke  says  there  were,  many  early  attempts  to  set 
down  in  writing  those  reminiscences  of  the  apos- 
tolic witnesses.  For  witness  was  their  business. 
When  it  became  necessary  to  choose  a  successor 
to  Judas  the  traitor,  S.  Peter,  in  the  days  before 
Pentecost,  emphasizes  their  position  as  witnesses  : 
"Of  the  men  therefore  which  have  companied 
with  us  all  the  time  that  the  Lord  Jesus  went  in 
and  went  out  among  us,  beginning  from  the 
baptism  of  John,  unto  the  day  that  He  was 
received  up  from  us,  of  these  must  one  become  a 
witness  with  us  of  His  resurrection" ' — that  is  to 
say,  the  official  witness  to  the  resurrection  was 
to  be  one  also  qualified  by  intimate  association 
with  the  previous  life  of  our  Lord. 

Of  this  apostolic  witness  we  have  the  record  in 
the  Gospels.  The  second  of  these  is  the  earliest ; 
and  there  is  every  reason  for  accepting  the 
attribution  of  it  to  S.  Mark — that  is  to  John 
Mark,  the  companion  of  Paul  and  Barnabas,  then 
of  Barnabas  by  himself,  then  of  S.  Paul  in  his 
captivity,  and  later  of  S.  Peter  at  Rome,  who  calls 
« Acts  i.  22,  23. 


1  36  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


him  "my  son."  *  He  had  himself  been  brought  up 
at  Jerusalem,  where  his  mother's  house  had  been 
the  haunt  of  the  apostles ;  and  he  probably  refers 
to  himself  in  his  narrative  of  the  passion  as  the 
young  man  with  a  linen  garment.  A  sub-apostolic 
writer  about  the  gospels  describes  S.  Mark  as 
S.  Peter's  interpreter,  who,  having  constantly 
heard  him,  wrote  down  as  accurately  as  possible 
what  S.  Peter  used  to  teach.  Is  not  such  a  man  a 
good  witness?  And  when  we  read  the  Gospel 
does  it  not  force  upon  us  the  sense  of  reality?  Is 
not  this  narrative  altogether  beyond  human  inven- 
tion? Is  not  this  the  very  Christ?  Of  course  I 
know  that  a  multitude  of  critics  have  in  various 
ways  sought  to  impugn  the  historical  character  of 
its  various  incidents.  But  then  these  critics  ap- 
proach their  task  with  a  strong  bias,  having 
determined  that  there  can  occur  no  real  miracles, 
so  that  they  are  bound  to  reject  any  strictly 
miraculous  incidents.  This,  no  doubt,  plays 
havoc  with  the  narrative.  For  it  is  miraculous 
through  and  through.  A  critic  of  the  Gospels 
who  refuses  miracles  is  bound  to  be  revolutionary. 

But  why  should  we  entertain  such  a  negative 
dogma?  If  we  really  believe  that  God,  the  creator 
and  sustainer  of  the  world,  has,  for  love  of  man, 
entered  into  human  life  in  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ  to  redeem  us,  is  not  such  a  strictly  re- 
♦  1  S.  Pet.  V.  13. 


The  Bible 


137 


creative  act  of  God  in  itself  miraculous — that  is 
to  say,  is  it  not  a  fresh  act  of  God,  which  the 
ordinary  order  of  the  world  cannot  account  for? 
Is  it  not  credible  indeed  that  this  divine-human 
person  should  have  miraculous  powers?  And, 
in  the  Gospel  narrative,  are  not  the  miracles 
enwrought  with  the  teaching  so  as  to  be  of  one 
indissoluble  piece?  And  does  not  the  person 
Himself  carry  with  Him  the  stamp  of  divine 
authority?'  This  is  not  really  a  matter  for  his- 
torical criticism.  Such  criticism  can  confirm  the 
tradition  that  the  second  Gospel  was  really  writ- 
ten by  John  Mark,  who  had  the  best  opportunities 
of  the  best  information.  It  can  assure  us  further 
that  the  narrative  has  all  the  appearance  of  naive 
truthfulness.  All  this  it  does,  and  beyond  this  it 
cannot  go.  It  is  for  every  man  to  decide  for  him- 
self whether  he  will  accept  the  witness.  But  when 
we  are  considering  the  qualifications  for  forming 
a  judgment,  we  cannot  help  recalling  the  words 
of  our  Lord,  "I  thank  thee,  Father,  Lord  of  heaven 
and  earth,  because  thou  hast  hid  these  things 
from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and  hast  revealed  them 
unto  babes."  The  pre-occupation  of  the  mind 
with  an  intellectual  idea,  the  prejudice  of  the 

'For  recent  discussions  of  miracles  see  Headlam's  Mir- 
acles of  the  New  Testament  (Murray)  ;  lUingworth's  Oospel 
Miracles  (Macmillan)  ;  and  Box's  The  Virgin  Birth  of  Jesus 
(Pitman) . 


138 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


learned,  may  be  as  great  an  obstacle  as  pride  or 
worldliness  to  the  obedience  of  Christ  and  the 
admission  of  the  gift  of  faith  into  the  soul. 

Next  to  S.  Mark's  Gospel  comes  S.  Luke's.  As 
I  have  said,  the  vindication  of  S.  Luke,  in  the  face 
of  destructive  criticism,  has  been  one  of  the  most 
notable  features  of  modern  historical  research. 
The  most  learned  critic  in  Europe,  Adolph  Har- 
nack,  has  abandoned  his  older  opinions  and  come 
round  to  be  a  strenuous  advocate  of  S.  Luke's 
authorship  both  of  the  Gospel  and  of  the  Acts.  In 
particular  the  historical  background  of  S.  Luke's 
writings  has  been  wonderfully  vindicated  by 
actual  discoveries  of  inscriptions  and  of  a  papyrus- 
leaf  containing  a  census-paper  exactly  corre- 
sponding with  S.  Luke's  description  of  the  method 
of  the  census.  His  statement,  "This  was  the  first 
enrolment  (or  census)  made  when  Quirinius  was 
governor  of  Syria.  And  all  went  to  enrol  them- 
selves, every  one  to  his  own  city," '  used,  when  I 
was  young,  to  be  the  common  object  of  mockery 
by  the  critics.  But  you  have  only  to  read  Sir 
William  Ramsay '  to-day  to  see  how  historical 
research  has  justified  S.  Luke. 

Now  let  us  read  S.  Luke's  preface  to  his  Gos- 
pel :  "Forasmuch  as  many  have  taken  in  hand  to 

•  S.  Luke  ii.  2-3. 

'  The  Bearings  of  Recent  Discovery  on  the  Trttstworthiness 
of  the  New  Testament  (Hodder  &  Stoughton),  capp.  18  B. 


The  Bible 


139 


draw  up  a  narrative  concerning  those  matters 
which  have  been  fulfilled  among  us,  even  as  they 
delivered  them  unto  us,  which  from  the  beginning 
were  eye-witnesses  and  ministers  of  the  word,  it 
seemed  good  to  me  also,  having  traced  the  course 
of  all  things  accurately  from  the  first,  to  write 
unto  thee  in  order,  most  excellent  Theophilus, 
that  thou  mightest  know  the  certainty  concerning 
the  things  wherein  thou  wast  instructed." 

This  is  a  simple  and  honest  enough  account  of 
his  motives  and  his  methods.  You  may  take  it 
at  its  face-value ;  and  among  the  previous  writ- 
ings which  he  used  we  must  reckon  S.  Mark's 
Gospel,  and  probably  a  document  which  in  its 
original  form  has  vanished,  but  which  was  the 
work  of  S.  Matthew,  and  consisted  in  the  main 
of  our  Lord's  discourses,  as  they  appear  both  in 
S.  Luke  and  in  the  first  Gospel.  Besides  this,  S. 
Luke  had  other  sources  of  information.  Names 
mentioned  incidentally  in  his  narrative,  such  as 
"Johanna,  the  wife  of  Chuza,  Herod's  steward," 
sometimes  indicate  such  sources.  And  the  nar- 
rative of  our  Lord's  birth  and  infancy  can  have 
come  from  no  other  source  than  the  circle  of 
Mary,  His  mother. 

What  I  have  attempted  to  do  so  far  is  simply 
to  indicate  up  to  a  certain  point  what  sort  of 
material  historical  criticism,  properly  so  called, 
puts  into  our  hands.   It  is  quite  true  that  a  great 


140 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


many  historical  critics  are  rationalistic  in  belief, 
and  are  therefore  bound  to  explain  away  all  that 
contradicts  their  rationalism.  But  they  have  not 
all  been  rationalists ;  and  some  of  those  who  have 
been  most  rationalistic  have  also  been  honest  and 
thorough  students ;  thus  I  have  tried  to  show 
that  we  need  not  be  afraid  of  their  properly  his- 
torical research.  By  far  the  greater  part  of  the 
New  Testament  is  given  back  to  us  with  the 
church  tradition  simply  verified. 

As  to  the  Gospel  which  bears  the  name  of  S. 
Matthew,  I  could  not  say  the  same.  The  bulk 
of  it  consists  of  the  material  of  S.  Mark's  Gospel 
and  of  the  collection,  mainly  of  our  Lord's  dis- 
courses, made  by  S.  Matthew.  And  the  book  as 
a  whole  plainly  comes  from  the  period  before  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  A.D.  70.  But  there  are 
reasons  against  our  ascribing  it  as  it  stands  to 
S.  Matthew's  hand,  and  who  compiled  it  we  can- 
not tell.  It  may  rightly  be  described  as  "the 
Gospel  according  to  S.  Matthew"  as  his  collection 
is  what  specially  distinguishes  it ;  and  the  instinct 
of  the  church  has  made  this  the  premier  Gospel, 
regarding  it  as  giving  us  the  fullest  narrative  of 
our  Lord's  words  and  acts. 

As  to  S.  John's  Gospel,  there  has  been  and  is 
much  controversy.  I  can  only  state  my  convic- 
tion that  those  great  scholars  are  right  who  point 
out  to  us  that  the  evidence  concerning  this  Gos- 


The  Bible 


141 


pel,  internal  and  external,  is  quite  incompatible 
with  any  other  authorship  except  that  of  S.  John 
the  apostle,  "the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved."  And 
this  has  been  the  assured  church  tradition  from 
the  first. 

In  order  that  no  one  of  the  books  may  be 
passed  over,  I  must  add  a  word  about  the  Revela- 
tion or  Apocalypse  of  S.  John,  that  mystical  book 
of  the  spiritual  conflict,  so  full  of  encouragement 
in  the  present  dark  hour.  Biblical  criticism  of 
recent  years  has  been  deeply  occupied  in  apoca- 
lyptic literature,  and  has  shed  no  little  light  on 
this,  the  greatest  of  the  apocalypses.  But  it  has 
not  required  us  in  any  way  to  lower  the  traditional 
estimate  of  the  book,  which  claims  more  than  any 
other  book  of  the  New  Testament  personal  in- 
spiration for  its  author. 

Thus,  with  exceptions  that  are  really  unimpor- 
tant, we  may  take  the  books  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment as  they  are  given  us  in  the  tradition  of  the 
church,  with  the  assurance  that  it  is  those  who 
contradict  rather  than  those  who  affirm  who  do 
violence  to  the  evidence.  The  church  puts  them 
into  our  hands  as  representing  the  witness  and 
mind  of  the  first  representatives  of  Christ,  and 
the  freshest  and  highest  inspiration  of  His  Spirit. 
We  shall  not  indeed  find  in  the  records  minute 
accuracy  as  to  either  our  Lord's  words  and  works 
or  the  actions  or  words  of  the  apostles.    The  dif- 


1 42  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


ference  between  the  forms  in  which  the  different 
narratives  reproduce  the  same  incident  makes 
this  quite  evident.  There  are,  no  doubt,  discrep- 
ancies. S.  Chrysostom,  one  of  the  greatest  of  the 
Fathers,  was  content  to  recognize  that  the  dis- 
crepancies do  not  touch  the  main  features  of  the 
portrait,  and  that  they  guarantee  to  us  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  witnesses.  Certainly  the  com- 
pilers of  "memoirs  of  our  Lord"  and  acts  of  His 
apostles  show  no  desire  for  minute  accuracy.  But 
we  can  rely  upon  them  as  truthful  narrators  and 
compilers  who  had  thoroughly  trustworthy 
sources  of  information. 

But  I  have  said  all  this  for  a  strictly  practical 
purpose.  I  have  sought  to  remove  a  preliminary 
obstacle  to  the  practical  and  spiritual  use  of  the 
New  Testament.  I  have  sought  to  give  "the 
ordinary  person"  reassurance  as  to  the  effect  of 
learned  research.  But  it  is  the  practical  use  of 
the  New  Testament  that  I  want  him  to  recover. 
What  I  would  advise  him  to  do  is  to  get  a  Revised 
Version  of  the  Bible,  which,  if  it  often  fails  in  the 
New  Testament  to  retain  the  music  of  the  old 
version,  is  undoubtedly  more  accurate;  and  I 
would  have  him  put  himself  to  school  with  each 
book  in  turn,  praying  first  for  the  help  of  the 
Holy  Spirit — that  is,  seeking  to  "read  the  books 
in  the  same  spirit  in  which  they  were  written." 
I  would  have  him  read  each  book  through  once 


The  Bible 


143 


or  twice  so  as  to  grasp  its  general  drift,  and  then 
in  due  course  ponder  over  each  passage  or  sec- 
tion, leaving  out  v^^hat  he  cannot  understand,  at 
least  at  first,  and  dwelling  most  on  what  strikes 
his  own  conscience  and  heart ;  and  thus  to  "read, 
mark,  learn,  and  inwardly  digest"  the  word  of 
God. 

I  believe  that  there  is  literally  nothing  in  the 
world  which  is  more  effective  for  keeping  our 
own  life  in  the  light  of  God,  and  for  maintaining 
the  level  of  the  whole  church's  life,  than  the 
enlightenment  which  results  from  this  sort  of 
familiarity  on  the  part  of  all,  clergy  and  laity 
alike,  with  "the  message  of  the  books."  And,  if 
I  may  judge  by  my  own  experience,  the  longer 
one  pursues  this  sort  of  devout  study  the  more 
convinced  he  will  become  both  that  the  writers 
of  the  books  were  men  inspired  by  the  Spirit  of 
Christ,  and  that  in  the  records  of  Christ  we  have 
the  fulfilment  of  His  promise :  "The  Holy  Spirit, 
whom  the  Father  will  send  in  my  name.  He  shall 
teach  you  all  things,  and  bring  to  your  remem- 
brance all  that  I  said  unto  you."  ' 

THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

No  doubt  the  progress  of  science  and  of  his- 
torical inquiry  does  require  of  us  a  somewhat 
revolutionary  change  from  that  estimate  of  the 
'  S.  John  xiv.  26. 


144 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


Old  Testament  in  which  our  parents  were  brought 
up — the  estimate  which  was  derived  both  from 
the  mediaeval  and  from  the  Puritan  tradition.  It 
was  claimed  that  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible 
made  all  its  statements  infallibly  true,  and  that 
what  is  there  recorded  certainly  happened  as  it  is 
set  down.  This  is,  I  think,  unbelievable  by  any 
one  who  is  at  all  familiar  either  with  science  or 
primitive  history.  But  if  this  particular  claim 
made  for  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  is  a 
mistaken  claim,  it  does  not  the  least  follow  that 
we  have  not  in  those  books  both  something  of 
the  deepest  religious  value  and  something  which 
is  most  certainly  the  product  of  divine  inspiration. 
I  believe  that,  if  we  are  faithful  both  to  reason 
and  to  religion,  the  use  and  estimate  of  the  Old 
Testament  to  which  we  shall  be  led  is  not  some- 
thing quite  novel,  but  is  closely  akin  to  a  use  and 
estimate  of  it  which  was  widely  familiar  in  the 
early  church. 

The  early  church  knew  the  value  of  fact,  and 
treasured  the  certainty  of  the  Gospel  of  fact.  But 
it  knew  also,  through  the  Greeks,  that  a  part  of 
human  education  is  due  to  stories  which  are  not 
true  in  fact,  but  which  contain  a  true  moral.  And 
it  was  prepared  to  apply  this  principle  of  "alle- 
gory" to  the  Old  Testament.  Thus  of  one  of  the 
oldest  of  the  church  Fathers,  S.  Irenaeus,  it  is 
recorded  that  he  argued  for  the  "spiritual"  (or 


The  Bible 


145 


allegorical)  as  against  the  "historical"  or  "literal" 
interpretation  of  the  story  of  the  temptation 
in  Genesis  iii;  and  a  later  father,  S.  Gregory  of 
Nyssa,  speaks  of  the  same  narrative  as  containing 
"doctrines  in  the  form  of  a  story."  It  is  something 
like  this  way  of  regarding  the  opening  stories  of 
the  Bible  that  we  want  to  popularize  again. 

Let  us  be  quite  frank.  It  is  a  mistake  to  look 
for  accurate  scientific  information  in  the  story 
of  the  creation  or  of  Paradise  or  of  the  fall  or  of 
the  flood.  These  are  stories  such  as  all  primitive 
peoples  form  to  embody  their  childlike  specula- 
tions about  the  origin  of  the  world.  Doubtless 
the  people  of  Israel  shared  such  stories  with  their 
neighbours;  but  the  point  is  that,  whereas  among 
their  neighbours  these  stories  were  full  of  poly- 
theism and  falsehood,  in  Israel  the  Holy  Spirit  of 
God  inspired  the  minds  of  the  prophets  through 
which  they  passed,  purged  them  of  evil,  and  made 
them  vehicles  of  the  loftiest  teaching  about  God, 
about  man's  nature  and  destiny,  about  the  nature 
of  sin,  about  divine  judgment,  and  about  God's 
purpose  of  redemption,  all  conveyed  in  the  child- 
ish stories  with  a  most  impressive  majesty.  Really 
there  ought  to  be  no  great  difficulty  in  realizing 
that  the  change  of  view  asked  of  us  is  no  spiritual 
loss  at  all,  and  that  it  is  not  the  purpose  of  inspira- 
tion to  teach  us  science. 

Again,  our  fathers  were  brought  up  to  believe 


146 


The  Religion  of  ihe  Church 


that  (if  I  may  so  speak)  Almighty  God  con- 
structed in  His  own  mind  the  elaborate  law  of 
worship  which  is  contained  in  Exodus  and  Leviti- 
cus, and  gave  it  in  so  many  words  to  Moses,  who 
instituted  it.  This  is  the  form  which  Jewish  rev- 
erence for  the  Law  as  divine  had  given  to  the 
narrative.  But  the  early  Christian  church  knew 
that  all  these  elements  of  ritual  were  shared  by 
the  Jews  with  their  heathen  neighbours :  that 
they  all  "had  their  origin,"  as  Chrysostom  ex- 
presses it,  "from  Gentile  grossness."  They  would 
not  have  been  in  the  least  shocked  by  anything 
which  the  comparative  study  of  primitive  relig- 
ions has  taught  us  about  the  Jewish  ceremonial. 
They  were  as  eager  as  possible  to  see  in  the  Jew- 
ish law  an  instance  of  God's  gradual  method  of 
education,  by  which  He  takes  men  as  He  finds 
them,  with  all  manner  of  savage  customs  and 
rites,  and  gradually  brings  them  under  a  dis- 
cipline which  at  last  shall  enable  them  to  dispense 
with  their  barbarous  rudiments  and  be  ready  for 
a  spiritual  religion.  It  would  be  very  easy  to 
quote  the  Christian  Fathers  to  this  effect  one 
after  another. 

Again,  many  of  the  Fathers  had  not  the  least 
difficulty  in  recognizing  in  the  moral  discipline  of 
the  Israelites  an  instance  of  the  same  gradual 
method.  "God,"  they  said,  "condescended  to 
allow  and  even  to  command  what  He  is  far  from 


The  Bible 


147 


finally  approving,  in  order  to  avoid  worse  things 
and  to  lead  men  on  to  better." 

In  fact,  the  minds  of  many  of  the  Fathers  w^ere 
full  of  this  principle  of  a  gradual  discipline  for 
men — a  gradual  leading  from  barbarism  up  to  a 
spiritual  level — and  they  applied  this  principle 
freely  to  the  Old  Testament.  The  chief  instru- 
ment of  this  divine  leading  was  prophecy.  In  the 
teaching  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  they  discerned 
"the  sacred  school  of  the  knowledge  of  God  and 
of  the  spiritual  life  for  all  mankind."  I  believe 
that  this  great  saying  of  S.  Athanasius  contains 
the  most  profound  insight  into  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Every  divine  vocation  or  special  election 
of  any  man  or  body  of  men  is  for  the  sake  of  all 
mankind.  As  the  Greeks  for  art  and  intellect, 
as  the  Romans  for  order  and  empire,  so  the 
Hebrews  had  a  divine  vocation  for  religion,  and 
that  for  the  sake  of  all  mankind.  The  Jewish 
prophets  were  men  specially  susceptible  of  relig- 
ion, who  were  chosen  as  the  special  vehicles  and 
instruments  of  the  divine  Spirit.  They  were  al- 
lowed to  feel  and  know  the  will  of  God.  They 
truly  spoke  the  word  of  the  Lord — His  message 
to  the  people  of  Israel,  and  so  indirectly  to  man- 
kind at  large. 

I  believe  that  nothing  is  more  morally  certain 
than  that  those  prophets,  from  Samuel,  Elijah, 
and  Elisha  down  to  the  second  Isaiah  and  Mai- 


148 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


achi,  were  really  inspired,  really  enabled  to  re- 
ceive and  to  utter  the  message  of  God,  through 
a  number  of  centuries  and  under  great  variation 
of  circumstance  and  temperament,  but  with  mar- 
vellous consistency,  till  the  great  spiritual  doc- 
trine about  God  and  man,  which  we  owe  to  the 
Jews,  and  which  is  the  basis  of  the  catholic  relig- 
ion, was  formed  and  accepted  as  divine  in  the 
heart  of  the  whole  people.  And  this  spiritual 
doctrine  which  was  uttered  by  the  prophets  grad- 
ually reformed  the  thoughts  of  Israel,  inspiring 
their  stories  of  the  beginning  of  the  world,  inspir- 
ing their  national  legends,  inspiring  their  history, 
moulding  their  traditional  ritual  to  express  a  spir- 
itual purpose,  controlling  their  speculation,  as  in 
Job  and  Ecclesiastes,  giving  tone  to  their  practical 
wisdom,  as  in  Proverbs  and  the  like  books,  ex- 
pressing itself  in  the  profound  religious  feeling  of 
the  psalms  of  the  sanctuary,  inspiring  also  later 
"stories  with  a  moral,"  like  Esther,  Jonah,  and 
the  stories  of  the  Book  of  Daniel — all  no  doubt 
based  on  a  historical  tradition — above  all  express- 
ing itself  in  the  certain  anticipation  of  the  Day 
of  the  Lord  and  the  appearance  of  the  divine 
Christ.  Can  we  not  learn  to  take  this  view  of 
the  Old  Testament  ?  It  is  in  most  thorough  har- 
mony  with  the  great  words  in  which  the  New 
Testament  writers  expound  to  us  the  purpose  of 
the  Old  Testament. 


The  Bible 


149 


"God,  having  of  old  times  spoken  unto  the 
fathers  in  the  prophets  by  divers  portions  and  in 
divers  manners,  hath  at  the  end  of  these  days 
spoken  unto  us  in  his  Son."  °  "Whatsoever  things 
were  w^ritten  aforetime  were  written  for  our  learn- 
ing, that  through  patience  and  encouragement  of 
the  scriptures  we  might  have  hope."  "  "Every 
scripture  inspired  of  God  is  also  profitable  for 
teaching,  for  reproof,  for  correction,  for  instruc- 
tion in  righteousness,  that  the  man  of  God  may 
be  complete,  furnished  completely  unto  every 
good  work."  "  In  fact,  if  a  man  will  take  such  a 
modern  and  scientific  interpreter  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament as  Dr.  Driver  or  Dr.  George  Adam  Smith, 
or  Dr.  Robertson  Smith,  and  really  enter  into  his 
spirit,  I  think  he  will  be  brought  to  believe  in  the 
inspiration  of  the  writers  of  the  Old  Testament 
as  he  never  believed  in  it  before,  and  will  experi- 
ence a  constantly  deepened  conviction  that  "sal- 
vation was  of  the  Jews" — that  they  were  the 
divinely  chosen  nursery  of  the  catholic  religion, 
and  that  the  divine  Spirit  really  did  inspire  their 
prophets  and  mould  their  institutions  to  prepare 
the  way  for  the  Christ." 

And  must  it  not  be  said  at  this  moment  of  the 

•  Heb.  i.  1.  ">  Rom.  xv.  4.         "  2  Tim.  iii.  16-17. 

"  The  most  useful  commentary  of  a  comprehensive  kind  for 
the  beginner  to  have  at  hand  is,  I  think,  Dummelow's  One 
Volume  Bible  Commentary  ( Macmillan ) . 


150 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


war  that  our  interest  in  the  Old  Testament  has 
been  marvellously  deepened  and  intensified  by 
our  experiences?  Have  we  ever  felt  the  Psalms 
or  the  Prophets  as  we  have  felt  them  the  last  two 
years?  Do  we  not  know,  as  we  never  knew  it 
before,  that  they  are  the  faithful  interpreters  of 
the  judgments  and  purposes  of  God? 

The  Bible  in  all  its  parts  is  the  record  of  God's 
revelation  of  Himself.  It  embodies  and  conveys 
to  us  His  word.  May  He,  who  by  the  entrance  of 
His  word  gives  light  to  the  soul,  help  us  with  the 
Spirit  of  understanding,  that  being  taught  of  Him 
in  His  Holy  Scriptures  we  may  understand  the 
words  of  eternal  life  and  be  made  wise  unto  salva- 
tion ! 


CHAPTER  IX 


The  Church  of  England  in  ihe  larger  xeorld 
I.  THE  OTHER  PARTS  OF  CHRISTENDOM 

1HAVE  tried  to  expound  the  religion  of  the 
church  and  of  the  Bible— saying  nothing,  I 
trust,  that  our  special  Anglican  formulas  do  not 
admit  of,  but  endeavouring  to  speak  as  one  who 
remembers  that  our  Church  of  England  and  the 
whole  Anglican  communion  is  only  a  portion  of 
a  larger  whole  which  embraces  and  controls  it. 
What  I  believe  in  is  not  the  Church  of  England 
but  the  one  holy  catholic  chuch.  But  unfortu- 
nately this  one  holy  catholic  church  has,  as  far 
as  this  world  is  concerned,  fallen  into  divisions ; 
and  I  must  say  something  about  the  relation  of 
the  Church  of  England  to  other  parts  of  a  divided 
Christendom. 

Thus,  first  we  find  ourselves  confronted  with 
the  great  church  of  the  Roman  communion  which, 
since  we  repudiated  the  authority  of  the  Roman 
pontiff  in  the  sixteenth  century,  superciliously 


1  52  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


repudiates  our  claim  to  be  part  of  the  catholic 
church  at  all,  and  claims  to  be  by  itself  alone  the 
one  holy  catholic  church.  Superciliousness,  how- 
ever, and  contemptuous  ignoring  of  others  are  not 
always  marks  of  a  true  claim.' 

So  far  as  concerns  the  claim  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  to  be  the  whole  church,  we  had  better 
leave  it  to  be  dealt  with  by  the  Eastern  and  Rus- 
sian churches,  which  are  likely  to  bulk  bigger  on 
the  horizon  of  the  West  in  the  future.  There  is 
not  in  truth  any  sound  reason  at  all  in  the  Roman 
attempt  to  ignore  the  great  Eastern  communion. 
That  has  simply  and  persistently  maintained  its 
ancient  position.  The  church  of  the  great  Greek 
fathers  has  all  along  steadily  repudiated  the  claim 
of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  to  be  by  divine  appoint- 
ment the  necessary  head  of  the  catholic  church, 
and  all  the  accompanying  dogmatic  and  discipli- 
nary claims.  It  has  steadily  refused  to  alter  its 
position.  And,  as  I  said,  this  Russian  and  East- 
ern Christendom  is  too  great  to  be  ignored.  It 
is  like  a  vast  breakwater,  meeting  and  throwing 
back  the  Roman  claim  long  before  it  reaches  us. 
It  simply  disposes  of  the  demand  of  the  Roman 
communion  to  be  regarded  as  the  whole  church. 
But  more  than  that,  it  represents  a  type  of  Ca- 
tholicism strangely  and  deeply  different  from  the 

'  Ezek.  xvi.  44-63  is  very  instructive. 


The  Church  of  England 


153 


Roman  type.'  It  establishes  the  invaluable  prin- 
ciple that  Catholicism  is  a  comprehensive  thing, 
admitting  of  different  national  and  racial  types, 
all  of  which  are  necessary  for  the  full  develop- 
ment of  the  religion  of  Christ.  And  if  it  be  once 
granted  that  the  Eastern  and  Russian  church  is 
as  legitimate  and  regular  a  part  of  the  church 
(to  say  the  least)  as  the  Church  of  Rome,  I  do 
not  think  that  we  in  our  turn  shall  find  it  dif- 
ficult to  maintain  our  position.  If  there  is  a 
providence  to  be  seen  in  history  anywhere,  its 
action  is  surely  apparent  in  the  circumstances 
which  have  given  to  our  Anglican  communion  its 
special  character  and  vocation  in  Christendom. 
The  ancient  catholic  church  had  four  outward 
and  visible  bonds  of  unity  universally  accepted : 
there  was  the  tradition  of  the  faith  to  be  main- 
tained, which  was  embodied  in  the  catholic  creeds 
and  dogmatic  definitions  of  the  undivided  church ; 
there  was  the  system  of  the  sacraments ;  there 
was  the  due  succession  of  the  bishops ;  and  there 
were  the  Scriptures,  the  inspired  books  of  the 
church,  the  constant  ground  of  appeal  in  matters 
of  doctrine  and  the  perpetual  standard  of  spiritual 
life. 

All  these  elements  of  catholic  communion  we, 
in  the  providence  of  God,  have  retained  through 

'  See  Lectures  on  the  Rtissiam,  Church  (S.  P.  C.  K.,  1915). 
"Its  doctrine."  By  W.  J.  Birkbeck. 


154 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


all  periods  of  peril  and  weakness ;  the  last  we 
have  restored  to  its  true  position.  The  appeal  to 
Scripture  and  antiquity '  as  limiting  and  restrain- 
ing the  dogmatic  power  of  the  church  is  unmistak- 
ably the  principle  of  the  ancient  church;  and,  if 
it  be  accepted,  it  prevents  the  accumulation  of 
dogma  beyond  the  limits  of  the  original  doctrine. 
The  church  has  no  other  dogmatic  function  but 
to  protect,  interpret,  and  hand  on  the  "faith  once 
for  all  delivered  to  the  saints."  This  is  the  safe- 
guard of  liberty  and  comprehensiveness.  Thus 
we  stand,  over  against  Rome,  a  part  of  the  catho- 
lic church  which  has  repudiated  nothing  that  is 
properly  authoritative,  seeking  to  embody  a  Ca- 
tholicism true  to  history  and  Scripture  and  to  the 
ancient  liberties  of  Christendom ;  treating  Roman 
Christianity  with  the  respect  and  reverence  which 
it  deserves,  but  as  a  one-sided  development  of 
Catholicism — a  development  which,  in  accordance 
with  the  natural  genius  of  Rome,  has  over-empha- 
sized and  exaggerated  the  dogmatic  and  govern- 
mental elements  in  the  church  at  the  expense 
both  of  liberty  and  of  truth ;  consistently  making 

'  The  Holy  Scriptures  stand  as  a  court  of  appeal  distinct 
from  antiquity,  in  virtue  of  the  special  inspiration  and  au- 
thority of  the  writers.  This  is  unmistakably  the  case  in  the 
mind  of  the  great  Christian  fathers.  But  in  fact  there  is 
not,  as  far  as  I  know,  any  doctrine  which  can  fairly  claim 
the  support  of  antiquity  as  being  part  of  the  faith,  which  is 
not  also  plainly  in  the  New  Testament. 


The  Church  of  England 


155 


our  appeal  behind  the  middle  ages  to  the  ancient 
and  undivided  church  and  to  Scripture.  And  if 
we  are  wise  we  shall  never  imagine  that  we  can, 
in  admiration  of  Roman  efficiency,  seek  to  ac- 
climatize amongst  ourselves  the  Roman  system 
without  the  Pope.  The  whole  ecclesiastical  de- 
velopment in  the  West  during  the  later  middle 
age  and  subsequently  has  centred  in  the  papacy, 
and  is  of  one  piece  with  it.  And  if  we  are  not 
intending  to  submit  to  the  Pope  on  his  own  terms, 
we  must  in  all  respects  seek  to  maintain  and  build 
up  our  system  on  the  principles  of  the  ancient 
church  and  the  holy  Scriptures. 

But  we  are  confronted  also  with  the  "Free 
churches,"  the  churches  that  are  frankly  Protes- 
tant. Now  it  is  impossible  to  deny  or  ignore  the 
fact  that,  whereas  the  Anglican  church,  in  its 
reformation,  carefully  maintained  the  properly 
catholic  tradition  in  structure  and  doctrine  of  the 
undivided  church,  the  Protestant  churches  of  the 
continent  and  of  Scotland  definitely  did  not.  The 
Reformation  with  them  became  a  thoroughgoing 
rebellion  against  the  old  church,  and  in  particular 
a  repudiation  of  the  ancient  ministry.  The  suc- 
cession which  we  retained  they  repudiated.  Thus 
in  claiming  (with  Luther)  that  each  group  of 
"faithful"  Christians  could  appoint  and  ordain  its 
own  minister,  or  (with  Calvin)  that,  owing  to 
the  apostasy  of  the  ancient  priesthood,  God  had 


1 56  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


originated  a  new  ministry,  they  were  alike  defi- 
nitely rebelling  not  only  against  particular  laws, 
but  also  against  a  fundamental  principle  of  the 
ancient  church.  The  same  thing  has  been  true 
of  the  later-formed  "nonconformist"  bodies ;  and 
it  follows  that  we  could  not  accept  their  ministers 
as  validly  ordained  ministers,  or  their  sacra- 
mental ministrations  as  valid  ministrations,  with- 
out cutting  off  ourselves  with  them  from  the 
fellowship  of  the  ancient  church,  and  from  all 
hope  of  reunion  on  a  catholic  basis,  for  instance, 
with  the  Eastern  and  Russian  church.  There 
seems  to  me  to  be  no  escape  from  this  con- 
clusion. But  we  can  only  say  this  with  much 
compunction. 

We  know  quite  well  how  the  nonconformist 
bodies  in  England  grew  up.  We  know  quite  well 
under  what  conditions  they  have  been  recruited 
and  gained  their  strength.  It  has  been  largely, 
at  least,  because  of  our  failure  to  be  what  a  church 
ought  to  be.  We  have  by  our  sins  and  shortcom- 
ings supplied  them  with  only  too  much  excuse  for 
separation.  It  will  cause  us,  therefore,  the  less 
surprise  to  find  the  tokens  of  the  action  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  most  plainly  evident  among  them, 
not  only  among  those  who  in  virtue  of  baptism 
are  individually  members  of  the  church,  but  quite 
as  obviously  among  the  Quakers  and  elsewhere 
where  baptism  is  rejected.   We  know  how  often 


The  Church  of  England 


157 


the  zeal  and  holiness  of  individual  nonconform- 
ists puts  us  to  shame,  and  we  know  too  how  often 
the  spirit  of  brotherhood  and  the  "preparedness 
of  the  gospel  of  peace"  have  been  found  in  their 
organizations  when  they  have  been  sadly  lacking 
in  ours.  I  am  sure  we  ought  to  recognize,  as 
frankly  as  possible,  that  God  has  been  pleased  to 
work  with  a  full  measure  of  His  grace  far  beyond 
all  normal  channels  and  laws  of  validity.  I  trust 
that  the  attitude  of  contempt  which  is  so  com- 
mon in  Romanists  towards  us,  and  has  been  so 
common,  alas !  in  Anglicans  towards  nonconform- 
ists, will  become  very  rapidly  a  thing  of  the  past. 
I  trust  we  shall  learn  to  hold  with  them  the  fullest 
measure  of  Christian  fellowship  which  we  can 
hold  without  faithlessness  to  the  principles  we 
stand  for.  And  if  I  am  asked  whether  in  making 
such  admissions  as  these  I  am  not  practically 
abandoning  my  principles,  I  dare  to  reply  with  a 
very  emphatic  denial. 

Whatever  apology  the  shortcomings  and  abuses 
of  the  church  make  for  Protestantism,  I  cannot 
but  feel  that  Protestantism — whether  it  be  con- 
sidered as  a  Christianity  which  seeks  to  stand 
upon  the  Bible  divorced  from  the  authority  of  the 
church,  or  as  a  repudiation  of  the  sacramental 
system,  or  as  an  appeal  from  the  visible  to  an  in- 
visible church,  or  as  a  repudiation  of  the  apostolic 
succession — is  less  and  less  able  to  justify  itself 


158 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


by  an  appeal  to  original  Christianity,  and  bears 
with  increasing  plainness  the  appearance  of  a  tem- 
porary rebellion  which  lacks  in  itself  the  condi- 
tions of  reconstruction  and  permanence. 

It  has  become,  for  instance,  increasingly  evi- 
dent that  the  Bible  will  not  stand  as  a  basis  of 
doctrine  divorced  from  the  authority  of  the  visi- 
ble church.  But  something  much  larger  is  also 
becoming  evident.  There  is  a  growing  disgust 
with  our  divisions,  both  the  divisions  in  our 
national  Christianity  and  the  divisions  between 
national  churches.  These,  it  is  widely  felt,  have 
in  effect  destroyed  the  moral  force  which  the 
catholic  church  as  a  supernational  society — hold- 
ing all  nations  together  on  the  basis  of  a  wider 
fellowship — was  intended  to  exercise.  But  if  the 
desire  for  this  catholic  fellowship  should  really 
revive  among  the  nations,  if  we  should  begin 
again  seriously  to  consider  afresh  that  our  Lord 
willed  us  all  to  be  one  in  a  visible  church,  nothing 
surely  is  more  certain  than  that  the  only  possible 
road  to  reunion  will  be  found  to  be  upon  the 
basis  of  the  ancient  catholic  tradition. 

The  spirit  and  meaning  of  that  tradition  I  have 
tried  to  describe.  The  idea  of  the  visible  church, 
the  idea  of  the  sacraments,  the  idea  of  the  min- 
isterial succession,  cohere  as  indissoluble  elements 
in  one  idea  and  one  institution.  And  this  idea 
and  institution  cohere  in  turn  with  the  incarna- 


The  Church  of  England   159 


tion.  Thus — Christ  is  the  embodiment  of  God. 
God  was,  and  is,  at  work  in  the  world  outside  the 
incarnate  Christ:  but  as  soon  as  Christ  has  been 
presented  to  us  we  cannot  reject  Him  and  still 
keep  our  hold  on  God.  So  the  visible  church  is 
the  embodiment  of  Christ — the  extension  of  the 
incarnation;  and,  as  soon  as  the  church  is  really 
presented  to  us,  we  cannot  reject  the  church  and 
still  hold  Christ.  "As  the  Father  hath  sent  me, 
even  so  send  I  you."  "He  that  heareth  you 
heareth  me;  and  he  that  rejecteth  you  rejecteth 
me;  and  he  that  rejecteth  me,  rejecteth  him  that 
sent  me."  *  The  same  principle  unites  Christ  to 
God  and  the  church  to  Christ.  It  is  the  mani- 
festation of  God  in  a  definite  visible  form.  It  is 
exactly  this  principle  as  applied  to  the  church 
which  Protestantism  seems  to  me  to  reject.  I 
think  its  rejection  is  the  heart  of  Protestantism. 
Let  us  listen  to  such  familiar  protests  as  these: 
"I  cannot  believe  that  material  things  can  be 
such  necessary  instruments  of  the  gifts  of  the 
Holy  Spirit."  "I  cannot  believe  that  the  Holy 
Spirit  can  wait  upon  the  ministrations  of  a  man 
who  may  be  an  unspiritual  and  wicked  man,  be- 
cause he  happens  to  have  received  the  laying  on 
of  a  bishop's  hands."  "I  will  not  have  a  priest 
standing  between  me  and  God."  "Surely,  if  my 
faith  in  Christ  is  real,  it  matters  comparatively 
*  S.  John  XX.  21 ;  S.  Luke  x.  16. 


160 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


little  what  body  of  Christians  I  belong  to,  or  what 
outward  forms  I  use." 

It  is  worth  while  spending  a  little  time  over 
such  protests.  I  have  no  doubt  that  they  make 
a  strong  appeal  to  a  great  many  religious  English- 
men. But  as  regards  the  first  two  protests,  I 
would  ask  any  one  who  is  impressed  by  them  to 
consider  what  is,  after  all,  the  basis  of  spiritual 
life  on  earth,  the  way  in  which  the  human  spirit 
has  its  origin.  Is  any  spiritual  power  that  a  man 
can  exercise  so  portentously  great  or  so  funda- 
mental as  the  power  to  bring  into  the  world  an 
immortal  soul,  a  spiritual  personality  with  its 
infinite  capacities?  Does  any  power  claimed  for 
any  priesthood  equal  this?  And  is  it  not  an 
undeniable  fact  that  in  the  order  of  God  this 
tremendous  spiritual  power  is  embedded  in  the 
physical  and  sexual  nature  of  man,  just  at  the 
point  where  the  physical  most  easily  degenerates 
into  the  sensual?  Does  not  this  mean  that  God, 
the  life-giving  Spirit,  does  confessedly  choose  to 
commit  Himself  to  physical  channels  and  to  the 
will  of  even  wicked  men  ?  Is  not  the  sacramental 
principle  affirmed  here,  if  I  may  say  so,  in  its 
most  perilous  form?  The  fact  is  so  staggering, 
and  yet  so  undeniable,  that  it  seems  to  me  to 
silence  once  and  for  all  the  objections  which  nat- 
urally rise  in  our  minds  against  the  sacramental 
system,  on  the  ground  of  its  apparent  subjection 


The  Church  of  England  161 


of  the  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  physical 
methods  and  to  the  wills  of  men.'  I  believe  it 
destroys  fundamentally  any  justification  for  pro- 
tests against  the  idea  of  material  things  as  chan- 
nels of  spiritual  grace,  or  against  the  idea  that 
"the  unworthiness  of  the  minister  does  not  hinder 
the  grace  of  the  sacraments." 

God  the  eternal  Spirit  has  plainly  no  horror  of 
taking  material  means,  however  liable  to  be  mis- 
used, as  instruments  of  His  spiritual  action. 
This  is  strictly  all  the  conclusion  that  I  would 
draw  from  the  above  consideration.  What  we  are 
to  believe  positively  about  the  sacraments  and 
their  conditions  must  depend  upon  what  we  act- 
ually find  to  be  the  message  of  the  Gospel.  But 
there,  I  contend,  at  the  heart  of  the  original 
Gospel,  we  find  the  church  with  its  sacraments 
and  its  ministry. 

As  to  the  other  familiar  protests  of  Protes- 
tantism— the  two  last  expressed  above — I  would 
say :  God  does  mean  the  individual  soul  to  have 
full  personal  communion  with  Him  in  Christ ;  and 
nowhere,  in  fact,  has  this  communion  been  more 
personal  or  more  intense  than  in  the  catholic 
church.  But  also  He  has  willed  that  the  indi- 
vidual should  enter  into  this  covenant  of  com- 

"  I  say  "apparent  subjection"  because  I  should  not  admit 
that  in  the  sacramental  system  there  is  any  real  subjection. 
"God  is  not  tied  to  the  sacraments." 


1 62  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


munion  with  Himself  only  in  fellowship  with 
other  men,  only  as  a  member  of  a  body,  in  due 
subordination  to  the  body.  Sacraments  are  no 
more  opposite  to  faith  than  food  is  opposite  to 
hunger.  But  the  sacraments  supply  the  soul  with 
its  necessary  nourishment  in  such  a  way  as  to 
keep  it  in  dependence  upon  the  body,  the  church. 
The  ministry,  again,  if  it  be  rightly  used,  no  more 
stands  "between  the  soul  and  God"  than  the 
father  and  mother  necessarily  stand  between  the 
soul  and  God :  nor  does  the  church  as  a  whole 
"stand  between  the  soul  and  God."  But  member- 
ship in  the  church  is  the  divinely-imposed  condi- 
tion of  the  soul  entering  into  and  continuing  in 
that  communion  with  God  which  Christ  came  to 
make  possible  for  man.  And  that  because,  at  the 
bottom,  it  is  the  will  of  God  that  only  in  com- 
munion with,  and  in  subordination  to,  our  fellows 
should  we  be  enabled  to  realize  the  end  of  our 
being. 

2.  CHURCH  REFORM 

A  Church-of-England  man  who  finds  himself 
called  upon  to  vindicate  the  position  and  claim  of 
the  part  of  the  church  to  which  he  belongs  can 
only  do  so  with  much  compunction.  It  is  not  our 
business  to  compare  ourselves  with  other  parts  of 
the  church.  But  it  is  our  business  to  be  deeply 
conscious  of  our  defects.   And  there  is  no  denying 


The  Church  of  England  163 


that  we  have  tolerated,  and  are  tolerating,  with 
an  almost  incredible  acquiescence  conspicuous 
abuses  in  our  system.  That  a  clergyman,  in 
virtue  of  the  "parson's  freehold,"  should  be 
allowed  manifestly  to  neglect  his  duties  as  a 
parish  priest,  and  to  be  in  all  respects  not  an 
incumbent  but  an  incubus,  and  still  to  retain  his 
position,  defying  parish  and  bishop  alike,  so  long 
as  he  does  not  commit  some  flagrant  breach  of 
the  law,  is  undoubtedly  a  grave  scandal,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  exaggerate  the  mischief  done  by  a  few 
such  cases  in  each  diocese.  Again,  that  the  right 
of  presenting  a  clergyman  to  the  pastoral  charge 
of  a  parish  should  be  a  piece  of  property,  which 
can  still  be  sold  or  bought  with  lamentably  little 
restriction,  is  a  like  scandal,  which  would  not  be 
tolerated  if  what  were  in  question  were  a  public 
school  mastership  or  a  professorship.  Again,  that 
an  incumbent  should  be  able,  owing  to  the  col- 
lapse of  ecclesiastical  discipline,  arbitrarily  to  alter 
the  customs  of  worship  in  a  parish,  almost  with- 
out restraint,  is  another  abuse  which  has  deeply 
alienated  reasonable  Englishmen  from  the  church. 
But  the  most  fundamental  of  all  these  scandals — 
the  cause  at  bottom  of  all  the  others — is  that  we 
should  have  been  content  and  should  still  be  con- 
tent, in  defiance  of  the  intentions  of  Christ  and 
of  the  spirit  of  the  church,  to  suffer  the  Church  of 
England  to  lack  the  power  of  self-government. 


164 


The  Religion  of  the  Chttrch 


In  consequence  of  this  loss  we  drag  on  our  way 
with  largely  antiquated  rules.  We  are  constantly 
involved  in  obscure  discussions  as  to  the  meaning 
of  ancient  rubrics,  instead  of  making  new  canons 
and  rules  to  suit  our  present  needs.  The  result 
of  such  paralysis  of  the  church's  action  has  been 
a  lamentable  lawlessness  which  has  infected 
bishops,  clergy,  and  laity  alike.  An  almost  un- 
restrained individualism  has  taken  the  place  of 
the  corporate  loyalty  and  subordination  which  is 
the  mark  of  a  healthy  society.  It  cannot  be 
doubted  that  a  "converted  church"  would  impe- 
riously demand,  at  whatever  cost,  the  restoration 
to  it  of  its  normal,  divinely-given,  power  of  self- 
government. 

And  in  a  democratic  age  we  should  seek  a 
scheme  of  self-government  such  as  will  give  to 
every  element  of  the  community,  to  bishops  and 
clergy  and  laity  alike,  in  each  parish  and  diocese 
and  in  the  church  as  a  whole,  its  legitimate  place 
and  function  in  the  system  of  government.  The 
Christian  church  can  never  be  a  pure  democracy. 
For  the  church  is  first  of  all  a  monarchy,  and  the 
will  of  Christ,  expressed  through  the  dogmatic 
and  disciplinary  authority  of  the  church  catholic, 
is  a  law  over  every  local  or  national  church. 
Moreover  it  is  by  the  will  of  Christ  and  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  church  that  the  hierarchy 
holds  its  proper  place,  and  there  is  entrusted  to 


The  Church  of  England  165 


bishops  and  clergy  a  ministry  of  the  word  and 
sacraments  which  the  body  of  the  church  has 
neither  conferred  upon  them  nor  can  take  away. 
But  in  the  early  church  the  democratic  element  in 
government  was  much  more  conspicuous  than  in 
subsequent  ages  from  a  variety  of  causes  it  be- 
came. The  method  of  government  in  the  church 
naturally  tends  to  conform  itself  to  the  spirit  and 
method  of  government  which  prevails  in  society 
as  a  whole.  Thus  in  imperialist  and  feudal  times 
the  democratic  spirit  in  the  government  of  the 
church  was  weakened  and  almost  lost.  But  in 
days  when  democracy  is  the  spirit  of  the  times 
the  church  should  revive  in  the  whole  body  of  the 
laity  powers  of  control  both  in  parochial  affairs 
and  in  the  church  at  large  which  have  been 
allowed  to  sleep,  but  have  never  been  and  never 
can  be  abolished.  A  few  years  ago  the  arch- 
bishops appointed  a  committee,  thoroughly  rep- 
resentative of  the  various  schools  of  thought  in 
the  church,  to  consider  how  best  the  church  could 
set  itself  to  recover  its  legitimate  and  inalienable 
function  of  self-government.  This  year  (1916) 
this  committee  has  reported,  and  its  report  is  in 
the  hands  of  the  church.  It  is  not  asking  too 
much  to  urge  that  every  member  of  the  church 
who  wants  to  fulfil  his  function  in  "loosing  his 
mother  from  her  chains"  should  study  this  report 
and  co-operate  in  a  vigorous  and  insistent  demand 


1 66  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


for  the  restoration  of  the  church's  liberty.  I  do 
not  think  that  the  proposals  of  this  committee  will 
be  found  to  contravene  any  principle  of  catholic 
order.  I  see  no  other  real  hope  for  our  sorely 
crippled  and  weakened  church  than  that  it  should 
resolutely  set  itself  in  correspondence  with  the 
purpose  of  our  Lord  and  in  obedience  to  His 
Spirit,  to  the  task  of  self-reform,  remembering 
that  it  is  the  whole  church,  and  not  only  the 
clergy,  which  is  the  royal  and  priestly  body,  and 
that  every  member  who  has  received  the  unction 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  confirmation  should  take  his 
or  her  part  in  the  blessed  work  of  liberation  and 
recovery. 

3.  THE  EVANGELIZATION  OF  THE  WORLD 

Of  course  the  Church  of  England,  like  every 
part  of  the  church,  must  refuse  to  be  content  with 
its  home  concerns,  and  must  take  its  place  in  the 
fulfilment  of  a  world-wide  mission — "Go  ye  into 
all  the  world,  and  make  disciples  of  all  the  na- 
tions." To-day  in  the  political  field  we  English- 
men have  to  learn  the  duties  and  opportunities 
which  a  world-wide  empire  lays  upon  us.  We 
have  to  organize  the  empire  for  the  fulfilment  of 
its  mission.  And  in  the  religious  sphere  our 
empire,  in  India  and  Africa,  lays  upon  us  a  very 
special  obligation  for  bringing  to  the  non- 
Christian  peoples  who  are  our  fellow  subjects  not 


The  Church  of  England  167 


only  such  secular  advantages  as  their  fellowship 
in  our  empire  ought  to  confer,  but  the  opportunity 
of  that  deeper  fellowship  which  only  the  catholic 
gospel  can  bestow.  But  the  obligation  to  evan- 
gelize the  world  is  far  wider  than  the  empire.  It 
is  an  obligation  to  China  and  Corea  and  Japan  as 
well  as  to  India. 

No  doubt  "missionary  work"  has  made  great  ad- 
vances among  us.  We  no  longer  talk  of  its  being 
"better  to  leave  the  heathen  to  their  own  relig- 
ions." We  understand  that  such  a  policy  is  not 
only  faithlessness  to  Christ,  but  also  an  impos- 
sibility. The  authority  and  discipline  of  the  old 
heathen  religions  is  weakened  inevitably  by  the 
spread  of  Western  science  and  by  the  mingling 
throughout  the  world  of  European  influences  with 
native  customs  and  modes  of  thought.  By  our 
mere  presence  among  them  we  inevitably  tend  to 
destroy  the  old  religions.  The  question  is.  What 
are  we  going  to  promote  in  their  place?  It  is  the 
Christian  church  only  which  has  an  answer  to  the 
question.  It  is  Christianity  alone  which  can  claim 
to  be  a  catholic  religion.  The  obligation  to  assist 
in  the  evangelization  of  the  world  lies  upon  every 
one  who  accepts  the  allegiance  of  Christ.  To  be 
content  to  keep  our  religion  for  home  consump- 
tion is  truly  to  forfeit  our  allegiance.  Every  con- 
sistent and  intelligent  churchman  must  take  his 
part  in  the  spread  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  To 


1 68  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


be  narrow  and  merely  national  in  our  religious 
sympathies  is  to  cease  to  be  in  any  real  sense 
Christian. 

4.  RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE 

Freedom  should  be  the  spirit  of  the  church  and 
not  least  intellectual  freedom.  Freedom  means 
that  the  churchman  who  has  really  assimilated 
his  religion  should  find,  as  S.  Paul  says,  that  "all 
things  are  his" — that  he  can  feel  at  home  in  the 
whole  universe,  as  a  son  in  the  Father's  house — 
and  this  cannot  be  without  intellectual  liberty. 
He  should  be  unshackled  and  open-eyed  in  the 
whole  world  of  investigation  and  discovery. 
There  should  be  no  conflict  between  religion  and 
science,  and  no  restraint  on  free  inquiry.  There 
is,  in  fact,  in  the  New  Testament  no  trace  of  ob- 
scurantism, but  a  love  of  the  light,  without  limit 
or  boundary. 

There  has  been,  however,  undoubtedly  a  very 
often  renewed  conflict  between  religion  and 
science — using  the  term  in  its  broadest  sense  as 
covering  historical  science  and  the  study  of  the 
history  of  morality  and  religion,  as  well  as  the 
physical  sciences.  And  the  cause  of  it  has,  per- 
haps, been  threefold. 

(1)  Christianity  quite  definitely  claims  that  the 
self-revelation  of  God,  given  through  the  Hebrew 
prophets  and  in  Christ,  has  pushed  back  the 


The  Church  of  England  169 


boundary  of  darkness,  and  given  mankind  a 
definite  knowledge  of  divine  things  vi^hich  it  could 
not  otherwise  have  had. 

Christianity  is  not  concerned  to  deny  that  God 
has  given  some  measure  of  revelation  of  Himself 
among  all  nations ;  it  is  not  concerned  to  minimize 
the  elements  of  truth  to  be  found  among  them. 
Quite  the  contrary.  But  it  is  concerned  to  main- 
tain a  special  vocation  of  the  Jews  to  be  the 
instruments  of  divine  revelation,  and  to  maintain 
that  this  revelation  as  consummated  in  Christ 
supersedes  not  only  the  Jewish  religion  but  all 
other  religions,  not  by  a  method  of  exclusion,  but 
by  the  inclusion  in  a  completer  whole  of  all  the 
elements  of  truth  which  each  contains.  And  this 
belief  in  a  positive  revelation  of  God  consum- 
mated in  Christ  does  exclude  all  manner  of 
contradictory  ideas  about  God,  about  sin,  about 
human  destiny,  such  as  have  been  current  among 
men.  Christianity,  for  instance,  must  be  in  ever- 
lasting opposition  to  any  religion  or  philosophy 
or  school  of  thought  which  is  based  on  pantheism, 
or  which  denies  to  man  the  real  freedom  of  his 
will,  as  the  basis  of  moral  responsibility,  or  which 
treats  sin  as  if  it  had  its  seat  and  root  in  our 
material  nature  instead  of  being  a  rebellion  of  the 
will,  or  which  denies  any  other  element  in  the 
positive  revelation  given  in  Christ.  That  is  the 
point.   Christianity  claims  that  God  has  given  to 


170 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


man,  by  revelation,  a  positive  knowledge  about 
God,  coupled  vi^ith,  and  involving,  a  positive 
knowledge  about  human  nature  and  sin  and  divine 
redemption.  This  from  the  first  made  it  neces- 
sary, and  must  forever  make  it  necessary,  that 
Christianity  should  be  a  controversial  religion, 
waging  war  against  every  idea  or  philosophy 
which  would  undermine  its  foundation  principles. 
It  is  probable  that  these  principles  would  never 
have  been  discovered  by  the  groping  of  the  human 
intellect.  At  any  rate  they  were  not  so  discov- 
ered. Men  do  in  fact  owe  them  to  the  Hebrew 
prophets  and  to  Christ.  But,  once  accepted  as 
true,  they  become  the  basis  of  a  philosophy 
which,  better  than  any  other  philosophy  (so 
the  Christian  must  contend),  can  interpret  and  co- 
ordinate all  the  facts  and  phases  of  experience. 
And  it  is  a  disastrous  mistake  on  the  part  of 
Christian  philosophers  to  allow  the  world  to  for- 
get what  is  the  real  source  of  our  knowledge  of 
God  and  of  ourselves.  In  this  sense — that  is,  in  so 
far  as  science  is  using  a  background  of  false 
assumptions  —  conflict  between  religion  and 
science  is  inevitable. 

(2)  But  so  far  as  scientific  research  is  using  no 
such  false  assumptions,  a  Christian  ought  to  enjoy 
the  fullest  freedom  in  the  world  of  knowledge.  I 
have  myself  from  time  to  time  been  a  respectful 
spectator  of  the  conversion  of  a  man  of  science 


The  Church  of  England 


171 


from  agnosticism  or  a  very  vague  belief  in  God  to 
a  full  Christian  belief.  Such  conversions  have 
come  about  from  various  causes,  intellectual  or 
moral.  But  vi^hen  the  Christian  faith  has  once 
been  frankly  accepted  as  "the  word  of  God,"  it 
has  been  very  interesting  and  reassuring  to  see 
that  the  man  of  science  has  not  suffered  in  his 
scientific  freedom — that,  while  he  has  found  him- 
self in  correspondence  with  a  new  world  of  spirit- 
ual experiences,  he  has  not  found  himself 
hampered  or  restrained  in  his  old  world  of  scien- 
tific research. 

But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  it  has  not  always 
been  so.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  church  has 
often  been  really  obscurantist,  has  often  laid  upon 
the  intellect  illegitimate  claims,  and  has  occa- 
sioned in  intellectual  circles  suspicion  and 
rebellion  for  which  there  was  too  much  justifica- 
tion. The  Roman  church  has  been,  no  doubt,  a 
great  offender.  When  S.  Ignatius  of  Loyola  bids 
his  retreatants  "always  to  hold  the  principle  that 
the  white  that  I  see  I  would  believe  to  be  black, 
if  the  hierarchical  church  were  so  to  rule  it," '  he 
is  laying  upon  the  intellect  a  claim  which  I  do 
not  think  anything  can  justify.  Wisely,  with 
Bishop  Butler,  we  should  repudiate  such  a  claim. 
We  should  hold  that  it  is  an  important  test  of  the 

'  Spiritual  Exercises,  edited  by  J.  Rickaby,  S.J.  (Burns  & 
Oatea,  1915),  p.  223. 


I  72  The  Religion  of  the  Church 


divine  origin  of  our  religion  that  it  frees  us  to 
observe  all  that  can  be  observed,  to  examine  all 
that  can  be  examined,  and  to  know  all  that  can 
be  known  by  our  natural  faculties  in  the  w^orld 
of  God.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  we  have 
been  also  offenders  against  the  light.  We  took 
surely  too  long  a  time  before  we  were  ready  to 
recognize,  even  if  we  are  quite  ready  to  recognize 
it  to-day,  that  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis  are 
not  to  be  treated  as  conveying  scientific  informa- 
tion ;  and  that  it  is  not  a  dogma  of  the  faith  that 
the  books  of  Jonah  and  Daniel  are  historical 
records.  We  ridicule  working  people  nowadays 
who  ask  about  Cain's  wife.  But  we  are  respon- 
sible for  their  asking  the  question.  We  were 
afraid  where  no  fear  was.  We  perpetuated  a 
needless  conflict  between  religion  and  science,  and 
we  alienated  a  great  many  honest  inquirers, 
through  being  much  too  slow  to  welcome  new 
light. 

(3)  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  a  vast 
part  of  the  conflict  in  the  minds  of  individuals 
between  the  claims  of  religious  faith,  as  they  have 
inherited  it,  and  the  conclusions  of  intellectual 
inquiry,  is  due  to  the  doubter  never  having  really 
given  his  faculties  to  the  study  of  religion.  My 
grandmother  Lois  and  my  mother  Eunice  were 
excellent  teachers  of  spiritual  lessons,  and  they 
brought  me  up  to  know  what  a  Christian  ought  to 


The  Church  of  England 


173 


know.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  I  am  justified 
in  taking  the  lessons  exactly  as  they  taught  them 
me  out  into  the  intellectual  world,  as  if  they  were 
final  statements  of  Christian  doctrine.  It  is  very 
strange  how  few  well  educated  men  and  women 
are  at  all  at  pains  really  to  apply  their  minds  either 
to  studying  some  rational  account  of  their  religion 
or,  if  they  are  able,  to  studying  the  documents  of 
their  religion  for  themselves.  I  do  not  think  it 
is  possible  to  exaggerate  the  difference  it  would 
make  to  men  and  women  without  number,  if  they 
would  only  give  themselves  the  time,  not  without 
prayer,  but  also  not  without  a  real  effort  of  their 
minds,  to  win  for  themselves  a  clear  perception 
of  the  coherence,  the  solidarity,  and  the  meaning 
of  the  articles  of  the  Christian  faith. 

5.  CHURCHMANSHIP  AND  CITIZENSHIP 

Our  Lord  took  for  granted  the  political  life  of 
man,  and  said  little  about  it.  But  He  set  to  work 
in  the  world  a  principle  of  humanity  which  could 
not  but  have  a  profound  effect  on  politics — the 
principle  of  the  absolute  and  equal  value  of  every 
human  soul.  At  the  beginnings  of  Christianity, 
under  the  Roman  Empire,  the  members  of  the 
church  found  themselves  debarred  from  imperial 
politics,  though  they  developed  fruitful  principles 
for  the  regulation  of  their  own  internal  life.  But 
in  time  Christian  states  arose ;  and  it  would  seem 


174 


The  Religion  of  ihe  Church 


to  be  obvious  that  a  community  dominated  by  the 
Christian  spirit  must  feel  the  obligation  to  legis- 
late and  fashion  its  institutions  so  as  at  least  to 
facilitate  and  not  to  hinder  the  development  of  the 
Christian  ideal  of  life. 

The  result  has  no  doubt  been  very  disappoint- 
ing. States  have  been  Christian  in  the  sense  that 
they  have  sought  to  enforce  by  law  the  profession 
of  Christianity.  But  society  has  not  been  so 
really  converted  as  to  break  the  tyranny  of  cus- 
tom and  tradition,  or  to  make  the  strong  ashamed 
to  prey  upon  the  v^^eak.  On  the  whole  Christian 
states,  so-called,  have  given  but  a  very  disappoint- 
ing picture  of  the  social  application  of  Christian 
principles.  Especially  in  recent  history  they  have 
too  readily  acquiesced  in  a  political  economy, 
really  anti-Christian  in  principle,  which  by  sub- 
stituting unrestrained  competition  for  co-opera- 
tion has  undermined  the  very  basis  of  fellowship. 

Let  us  take  one  example  of  this  failure.  In  the 
early  days  Christians  could  not  affect  the  laws  or 
institutions  of  the  empire.  They  could  only  com- 
bine to  keep  one  another  from  want.  Almsgiv- 
ing, the  relief  of  the  needs  of  the  poor  by  the  rich, 
or  of  the  sick  by  the  healthy  members  of  the 
community,  was  effective  on  the  whole  and  not 
demoralizing ;  for  Christians  were  running  a  com- 
mon risk ;  the  tie  of  brotherhood  was  very  close ; 
and  the  claim  for  almsgiving,  according  to  a  man's 


The  Church  of  England  1  75 


means,  was  accompanied  by  an  equal  insistence 
that  each  man  must  do  his  best  to  support  himself. 
"If  a  man  will  not  work,  neither  let  him  eat." 

But  when  Christians  gained  control  of  legisla- 
tion another  duty  ought  to  have  arisen  into 
prominence — that  of  so  moulding  the  institutions 
of  the  state  as  to  prevent  pauperism  and  disease. 
It  seems  to  be  only  now  that  we  are  waking  up  to 
our  vast  neglect  in  this  respect.  The  church  has 
constantly  been  occupied  in  picking  up  the 
wounded  in  the  battle  of  life — in  providing  medi- 
cines and  staunching  wounds — when  it  ought  to 
have  been  thundering  at  the  gates  of  tyranny.  It 
ought  not  to  have  allowed  the  organized  forces 
of  vice  and  selfishness  to  entrench  themselves  and 
build  their  castles  and  provide  themselves  with 
munitions.  It  ought  to  have  been  militant  in  such 
sense  as  to  force  men  to  see  in  it  the  determined 
and  constant  enemy  of  selfishness  and  wrong;  it 
ought  to  have  had  discernment  enough  to  tear  the 
cloak  of  respectability  off  the  strongholds  of  evil, 
and  courage  enough  to  force  men  to  choose,  not 
only  in  their  private  lives  but  on  the  public  stage, 
between  their  Christian  profession  and  their  sel- 
fish, anti-social,  claims.  Now  there  is  no  longer 
in  any  modern  state  any  question  of  compelling 
men  to  be  Christians ;  there  is  indeed  hardly  any 
question  of  the  state  definitely  maintaining  the 
Christian  standard  as  such ;  but  there  is  a  great 


176 


The  Religion  of  the  Church 


and  fresh  opportunity  for  Christians  of  all  kinds 
to  combine  and  show  the  world  what  an  organized 
Christian  public  opinion,  making  the  most  of  its 
citizenship,  can  effect — a  great  and  fresh  oppor- 
tunity to  make  it  evident  that  the  laws  and  insti- 
tutions which  the  church  can  support  must  be 
laws  and  institutions  which  really  embody  and 
promote  the  Christian  ideal  of  brotherhood. 


I  have  come  to  the  end  of  what  has  proved  a 
very  difficult  task — that  of  providing  within  a 
very  short  compass  a  comprehensive  account  of 
the  Christian  religion.  A  book  of  this  kind,  which 
must  advance  so  many  statements  without  being 
able  to  buttress  them  with  proofs,  lays  itself  open 
to  manifold  criticism.  So  I  will  venture  to  con- 
clude with  the  words  with  which  S.  Ignatius 
prefaced  his  Spiritual  Exercises — "It  must  be  pre- 
supposed that  every  good  Christian  should  be 
more  ready  to  approve  than  to  condemn  a  prop- 
osition advanced  by  his  neighbour:  and  if  he 
cannot  approve  it,  let  him  inquire  into  his  mean- 
ing; and  if  it  be  erroneous,  let  him  correct  him 
lovingly ;  and  if  that  does  not  suffice,  let  him  em- 
ploy all  suitable  means  that  his  neighbour  may 
be  brought  to  a  right  mind  and  stand  approved." 


INDEX 


Acts  of  the  Apostles,  133. 
AflBnity  and  consanguinity, 
61. 

Allegorical  interpretations, 
145. 

Almsgiving,  97,  112,  174. 
Angels,  32. 
Apocalypses,  69. 
Apostolic     Succession,  62, 

153. 
Ascension,  21. 
Atonement,  23. 
Attributes  of  God,  18. 
Authority   of   the  Church, 

107. 

Autonomy,  Demand  for,  165. 

Baptism,  2,  4,  45. 
Bible,  10,  129,  153. 
Bishops,  62,  153,  165. 
Brotherhood,  Spirit  of,  102, 
157. 

Burial  Service,  5. 

Catechism,  13,  105. 
Ceremonies,  96. 
Church,  1,  36,  and  passim. 
Church  of  England,  1,  151, 

and  passim. 
Church  Reform,  162. 


Citizenship,  173. 
Coming  of  Christ,  70. 
Commandments,    The  Ten, 
104. 

Communion,  Holy,  2,  4,  48, 
125. 

Communion  of  Saints,  87. 
Comprecation,  90. 
Confirmation,  47. 
Counsels,   The  Evangelical, 
113. 

Creeds,  20,  30,  153. 

Day  of  God,  68. 
Deacons,  62. 

Dead,  Prayer  for  the,  88. 
Death,  73,  81. 

Democratic   principle.  The, 

64,  164. 
Devils,  33. 

Difficulties  in  prayer,  126. 
Divorce,  60. 
Duty  towards  God,  106. 
Duty    towards  neighbour, 
106. 

Eastern  Church,  152. 
End  of  the  world,  67. 
Epistles,  132. 

Ethics  of  the  Epistles,  101. 


178 


Index 


Evangelization  of  the  world, 
166. 

Example,  Our  Lord's,  22. 

Fasting  and  Fast  Days,  97, 
112. 

Fatherhood  of  God,  15,  99. 
Feast-days,  112. 
Free  Churches,  The,  155. 
Freehold,  The  Parson's,  163. 
Free-will,  31. 

God,  15. 
Gtospels,  1,  134. 

Heaven,  72. 
Hell,  82. 

Human  nature,  30. 

Identification   with  Christ, 
25. 

Incarnation,  20. 
Inspiration,  130,  141,  172. 
Intermediate  state,  85. 
Invocation  of  Saints,  88. 

Jesus  Christ,  19. 
Judgment,  80,  85. 

Last  things.  The,  67. 
Liberty,  Religious,  171. 
Lord's  Prayer,  120. 
Lost,  State  of  the,  80. 

Marriage,  Misuse  of,  111. 
Matrimony,  4,  59,  112. 
Meditation,  142. 


Membership,  1,  37,  44,  101, 
162. 

Mind  of  Christ,  93. 
Miracles,  136. 
Missions,  Foreign,  166. 
Moral  spirit  of  Christ,  96. 
Morality,  Christian,  92. 

New  Testament,  132. 
Nonconformists,  156. 

Old  Testament,  143. 
Orders,  Holy,  62. 

Patronage,  Church,  163. 
Penance,  4,  55. 
Politics,   The  Church  and, 
173. 

Prayer,  97,  117. 

Prayer-Book,  3. 

Precepts  of  the  Church,  112. 

Priests,  62. 

Property,  110. 

Prophecy,  147. 

Prophets,  Jewish,  147. 

Protestant  Churches,  156. 

Protestantism,  157. 

Public  opinion,  97. 

Purgatory,  85. 

Reformation,   The,   3,  129, 
155. 

Religious  state.  The,  113. 
Resurrection  of  our  Lord,  21, 
75,  79. 

Resurrection  of  the  dead,  73. 
Revelation  of  S.  John,  141. 
Rome,  The  Church  of,  151. 
Russian  Church,  152. 


Index 


179 


Sacraments,  41,  153. 
Sacrifice,  The  Christian,  52. 
Schism,  40. 

Science,  Religion  and,  168. 
Sin,  30,  55,  97. 
Spirit,  The  Holy,  26. 
Spiritualism,  78. 
Sunday,  54,  112. 
Symbolism,  21. 


Trinity,  The  Holy,  28. 
Trustworthiness  of  the  New 
Testament,  141. 

Unction,  61. 
Universalism,  84. 

Visitation  of  the  sick,  4,  57. 

War,  95. 
Wills,  112. 


Date  Due 


1  1012  01016  5357 


